Elyakim Rubinstein

Elyakim Rubinstein (אליקים רובינשטיין, born June 13, 1947) is a former Vice President of the Supreme Court of Israel.

Born in Tel Aviv and raised in Givatayim, he graduated from the Tzieltin religious high school in Tel Aviv and earned his bachelor's (1969) and master's (1974) degrees from Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Rubinstein launched a career in law, serving as a legal advisor to the ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs during the mid-1970s.

His diplomatic career started in 1977, and from then through 1979 he was a member of Israel's delegation to the peace talks with Egypt that led to the signing of the Camp David Accords between the two countries.

Upon their completion, he became in 1980 an assistant director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in charge of implementing the normalization of relations with Egypt.

During the early 1980s he served in a variety of capacities in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in 1985-1986 served as Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C. In 1986 he was appointed Cabinet Secretary and in this capacity he served in various roles relating to Israel–United States relations.

In 1991 he was again a member of an Israeli peace negotiating team, traveling as part of the Israeli delegation to the Madrid Peace Conference that opened the negotiations (for which he served as chairman of the Israeli delegation) that would eventually lead to the 1993 Oslo Accords, a major breakthrough in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Following the conclusion of these talks, he chaired the Israeli delegation to peace talks with Jordan, which concluded successfully with the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty.

Beforehand, he served as the Attorney General of Israel from 1997 to 2004.

Rubinstein, a former Israeli diplomat and long-time civil servant, has had an influential role in that country's internal and external affairs, most notably in helping to shape its peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan.

In 1999, Rubinstein decided not to investigate former Sephardi Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the founder and spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, for calling Supreme Court justices "evildoers", "empty-headed and reckless" and various other harsh epithets.

A year later, however, he did order an investigation after Rabbi Yosef compared the secular education minister, Yossi Sarid, to the Pharaoh of the Book of Exodus and said he should be "extirpated from the Earth" like Haman in the Book of Esther.

In January 2000, Rubinstein asked President Ezer Weizman to hand over financial documents after it was disclosed in the press that he failed to report $450,000 he received as a "gift" from a friend to the Knesset and tax authorities.

Weizman ultimately resigned six months later.

Despite this, Rubinstein was often criticized for being too hesitant or indecisive in cases involving powerful Israeli officials, in particular for moving too slowly on those corruption charges involving Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his son Gilad.

In the weeks following the end of his term as Attorney General, the State Attorney, Edna Arbel, was quick to recommend that Sharon be indicted on bribery charges.

Rubinstein's initial hesitancy, however, was subsequently vindicated by his replacement, Menachem Mazuz, who decided not to press charges of corruption against Sharon and his son due to insufficient evidence.

In the midst of the Sharon investigation Rubinstein suspended a state prosecutor for leaking to a Haaretz reporter a document that outlined corruption allegations against Sharon and his son while the matter was sub judice.

"I am not a disciple of investigations into leaks, mainly because in the past they have not shown results. Two reasons led me to decide upon the investigation: ... the obstruction and damage caused to the investigation by the leak, and the suspicion, which unfortunately came true, that a source from the government made a political move in this sensitive period prior to the elections."

During the 2003 legislative election campaign, Attorney General Rubinstein supported the Central Election Committee's decision to ban the anti-Zionist Balad party and its leader, Azmi Bishara, as well as Baruch Marzel of the right-wing Yamin Yisrael party from running, but he objected to its decision to disqualify Ahmad Tibi on account of his public support for Yasser Arafat, which it viewed as tacit support for terrorism.

The Committee based its opinion on Article 7 of the Basic Law on the Knesset, which states that candidates for Knesset cannot oppose the Jewish and democratic character of the state, preach racism or support armed attacks by an enemy state or terrorist organization.

He then turned towards domestic Israeli jurisprudence, serving as a judge on Jerusalem's District Court from 1995 to 1997, and then as Attorney General of Israel, a position he held until January 25, 2004.

He has written several books on Israel's Supreme Court, especially focusing on the relation of Judaism to Israeli political and legal life.

In this role he has gained a reputation for being somewhat of a liberal reformer, going up against the established might of Orthodox Judaism in favor of religious pluralism to represent all factions of Judaism.

His most important success in this endeavor has been to gain Reform and Conservative Judaism seats on Jerusalem's religious council, previously controlled entirely by the Orthodox.

He has proposed opening a section of the Western Wall for non-Orthodox religious services, but this has not yet been successful.

Rubinstein has been criticized for being too hesitant or indecisive in cases involving powerful Israeli officials.

In particular, he was criticized for having moved too slowly on corruption charges involving Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his son Gilad.

In the weeks following Rubinstein's end of term as Attorney General The State Attorney, Edna Arbel, was quick to recommend that Sharon be indicted on bribery charges, however Rubinstein's replacement Menachem Mazuz subsequently exonerated Sharon and his sons and did not press charges of corruption due to insufficient evidence.

In May 2004, Rubinstein was appointed to Israel's Supreme Court.

Rubinstein even submitted to the Court information gathered by the Shin Bet to support the ban on Bishara (who subsequently fled the country before he was charged with treason and espionage for advising Hezbollah during the 2006 Lebanon War and stealing millions of shekels from Arab aid organizations).

Balad, Bishara, and Marzel, however, were ultimately allowed to participate in the elections when the decisions against them were overturned by the Supreme Court.

In 2012, Rubinstein, who is regarded by many as a "relative conservative" on the Court, openly supported the right of his Arab-Christian colleague, Justice Salim Joubran, not to sing the national anthem, Hatikvah, at an official ceremony:

"Non-Jewish citizens must respect the anthem by standing for it… but one cannot demand that Arab citizens sing words that do not speak to their hearts and do not reflect their roots… Of course whoever wants to join in the singing of the anthem is welcome to do so, but the decision is personal."

In his capacity as chairman of the 2013 Knesset election committee, Rubinstein forced the removal of several television ads, one from Shas, which he viewed as insulting to Russian-speaking immigrants, and the others from Otzma LeYisrael, which he viewed as racist against Arabs.

"The emerging picture is that Halakha regards necessary expenses, including expenses for a caregiver, as appropriate for deduction from the basis of tithes (ma’aser kesafim), and the analogy to our case is clear."

In January 2015 he was appointed Vice President of the Court, a position he held until his statutory retirement at the age of 70, in 2017.

Rubinstein gained a reputation for being somewhat of a liberal reformer, going up against the established might of Orthodox Judaism in favor of religious pluralism to represent all factions of Judaism.

His most important success in this endeavor came when Reform and Conservative Judaism gained seats on Jerusalem's religious council, previously controlled entirely by the Orthodox.

He has proposed opening a section of the Western Wall for non-Orthodox religious services, but this has not yet been implemented.