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Former Israeli supreme court chief justice laid to rest on Tuesday

As chief justice, he is well remembered as the one who overturned the conviction of John Demjanjuk, a Nazi guard at the Sobibor death camp, who was facing capital punishment for crimes against humanity.

By World Israel News Staff

Former Israeli Supreme Court Chief Justice Meir Shamgar will be laid to rest on Tuesday in a public funeral. Before the funeral, he lay in state for several hours at the Supreme Court to allow the public to pay its respects.

Shamgar’s sons Dan and Ram along with Prime Minister Benjamin, President Rivlin, Supreme Court President Esther Hayut, former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak, and former Justice Edna Arbel will deliver eulogies at the funeral.

Shamgar passed away Saturday at the age of 94.

Israeli and Jewish leaders worldwide have mourned the passing of the former chief justice.

“Meir Shamgar had an important role in shaping the foundation of Israeli jurisprudence including legal policy in Judea and Samaria,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. “I will always recall with esteem our joint activity in managing the Yonatan Institute after the passing of my brother Yoni. May Meir’s memory be blessed.”

Rivlin said that Shamgar was “a man of truth, learned and wise, groundbreaking, brave, honest and modest.”

“We mourn the loss of one of Israel’s greatest jurists who served as President of the Supreme Court for 12 of his 20 years as a justice,” said the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations

“He earned universal respect and admiration. He addressed the Conference of Presidents both in Israel and on his visits to the United States. We extend our condolences to his family,” he added.

Shamgar was born in 1925 in Danzig, Poland. In 1939, he immigrated to Israel which was then controlled by the British Mandate. During that time, he was exiled by the British to Africa for his participation with a group of Jewish resistance fighters.

When the State was established in 1948, Shamgar returned to Israel and enlisted in the IDF. In 1968 he was appointed Attorney General of the State of Israel, a position he held until 1975 when he was appointed as a justice of the Supreme Court. Shamgar became chief justice in 1983, a position he held onto until 1995.

As attorney general, he made the decision to allow Palestinians in Judea and Samaria to submit legal appeals directly to Israel’s Supreme Court.

As chief justice, he is well remembered as the one who overturned the conviction of John Demjanjuk, a Nazi guard at the Sobibor death camp, who was facing capital punishment for crimes against humanity.

After his retirement in 1995, Shamgar led the committee that investigated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination by a Jewish extremist.