HaLevy, Binyamin

Binyamin HaLevy was born in Weissenfels, Germany and received his academic education in the universities of Freiburg, Göttingen, and Berlin. With a PhD in law in hand, HaLevy immigrated to Israel in 1933 to join the Hakhshara program in Kibbutz Degania. In 1938 HaLevy received his first judicial appointment in the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court and was later appointed to the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court. Upon the foundation of the state of Israel, HaLevy was appointed to the Jerusalem District Court. In this position Halevy judged several famous cases. He was the sole judge in what became known as the "Kastner trial," a libel lawsuit against Malchiel Gruenwald, a hotelier, who accused Rudolf Kastner of having been a Nazi collaborator. HaLevy ruled that Kastner had indeed, in his words, "sold his soul to the devil." Kastner was later assassinated and Halevy's ruling was mostly overturned by the Supreme Court. HaLevy was also the sole judge at the trial of the perpetrators of the Kafr Qasim massacre and in his decision famously wrote, "The distinguishing mark of a manifestly illegal order is that above such an order should fly, like a black flag, a warning saying: 'Prohibited!'" He was later a judge at the trial of Adolf Eichmann, along with Yitzhak Raveh and Moshe Landau. HaLevy was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1963. In 1969 HaLevy resigned from the Supreme Court in order to run as a candidate to the Knesset. Between 1969 and 1981 HaLevy served as a Knesset member, starting out in the Gahal party, which eventually became the Likud.