Israeli politician (1939?2017)
Yaakov Neeman
(
Hebrew
:
???? ????
, 16 September 1939 ? 1 January 2017) was an Israeli lawyer who served as
Minister of Justice
and
Minister of Finance
, although he was never a member of the
Knesset
.
Biography
[
edit
]
Neeman was born to a religious
Zionist
family in
Tel Aviv
during the
Mandate era
.
[1]
[2]
He was educated at the Midrashiat Noam high-school
yeshiva
[1]
and completed his military service in the
Golani Brigade
. He went on to study law at
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
, earning a
LL.B
in 1964. In 1965, he earned a
LL.M
from
New York University
, and in 1968, a
LL.D
.
[3]
After returning to Israel, in 1972 he founded the law firm
Herzog, Fox & Ne'eman
, along with future president of Israel
Chaim Herzog
.
[4]
Neeman was appointed Director General of the Finance Ministry in 1979, serving until 1981. In June 1996 he was appointed to the Israeli cabinet as
Minister of Justice
by Prime Minister,
Binyamin Netanyahu
, despite not being a member of the
Knesset
.
[4]
Two months later he resigned from the cabinet, after
Attorney General
Michael Ben-Yair
opened a criminal investigation into allegations that Neeman had tried to
suborn
a witness in the trial of MK
Aryeh Deri
.
[4]
Neeman was eventually cleared of the charges
[4]
and returned to the cabinet in July 1997 as
Minister of Finance
until the end of the Netanyahu premiership at the
1999 elections
.
[1]
In late March 2009, following Netanyahu's return to power as Prime Minister of Israel, Neeman was again appointed as Justice Minister.
[5]
Neeman resided in
Jerusalem
in the
Talbiya
section. He is survived by his wife and six children.
[3]
Wikinews has related news:
Committee Membership
[
edit
]
Neeman has chaired or been a member of numerous national and international committees, including the Executive Committee of
Bar-Ilan University
, the public committee appointed by the
Speaker of the Knesset
to determine salaries and other payments to government officials, the public committee appointed by the
cabinet
for the Drafting of the Constitution, the Public Committee on Educational Centers, the Public Committee on Privatisation Issues of
El Al
, the board of governors of
Bank of Israel
, the Committee for the Conversion Law, the National Committee for the Identification of Fallen Soldiers in Times of Emergency, Israel Atomic Energy Committee and the Central Committee of the
World Bank
.
[3]
Political views
[
edit
]
On 8 December 2009, while serving as the Minister of Justice, Ne'eman was reported as saying that he believed that
Halakha
should gradually be made binding law in Israel, with the ultimate goal of making Israel a
Halakhic state
. But he later denied this,
[6]
emphasizing that "the Knesset is the legislator in Israel, and the interpretation of its laws is determined by the [civil] courts." He said that he advocated the use of religious courts only in an auxiliary role, to "resolve financial disputes in accordance with the principles of Jewish law. The court system in Israel is backed up, and therefore, cases should be transferred to an alternative system."
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
| |
* entire or partial tenure as Substitute Justice Minister, until a replacement was found
|