The Israel Supreme Court at a Moment of Transition: Looking Back, and Looking Forward, with Justices Naor, Rubinstein, and Joubran

Last year saw the near simultaneous retirement of the three most senior members of the Israeli Supreme Court.  President Miriam Naor, Deputy President Elyakim Rubinstein, and Justice Salim Joubran all reached the mandatory retirement age of 70.  The departure of these three important justices provides an appropriate moment both to acknowledge and evaluate the jurisprudential contributions of these three Justices and to focus scholarly attention on the Court as a whole.  Marking this unusual juncture in the Court’s evolution, Cardozo’s Israel Supreme Court Project and Columbia’s Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies are joining forces for a two-part conference. 

First, on the evening of March 7, at 8:00 p.m., we will host a panel featuring all three justices in conversation with Michael Stanislawski and Suzanne Stone.  The panel will take place at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism Pulitzer Hall on the campus of Columbia University.

The next day will feature a day-long academic program at Cardozo, consisting of three panels, each focusing on a specific opinion (translated into English) by one of the three retiring justices. The Rubinstein panel will focus on his opinion in Ragen v. Ministry of Transport, HCJ 746/07 (January 5, 2011), concerning steps to eliminate gender segregation on public buses.  President Naor wrote the lead opinion for a nine-Justice panel in the well-known case of Desta v. Minister of Interior, HCJ 8665/14 (Aug. 11, 2015), which dealt with the detention and deportation of illegal entrants (or “infiltrators,” as the relevant Hebrew term is usually translated).  The Joubran panel will focus on his dissenting opinion in Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel v. Minister of Interior, HCJ 7052/03 (May 14, 2006), which upheld a statute that severely limited entrance of Palestinians into Israel even for purposes of family unification.  Here is the full program:

9:00 – 10:30
Panel 1
Hon. Miriam Naor, Supreme Court of Israel (ret’d)
T. Alexander Aleinikoff, The New School
Tally Kritzman-Amir, College of Law and Business (Israel) and Harvard Law School
Alex Stein, Brooklyn Law School
Rivka Weill, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and Yale Law School
Doron Kalir, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, moderator

11:00 – 12:30
Panel 2
Hon. Salim Joubran, Supreme Court of Israel (ret’d)
Stephen Ross, Penn State University
Udi Sommer, Tel Aviv University and Columbia University
Ruti Teitel, New York Law School
Michael Herz, Cardozo School of Law, moderator

12:30 – 1:45
Lunch
Lunch will be provided for all registrants.
Remarks by:
Ari Berman, President, Yeshiva University
Irwin Cotler, Chair, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights

1:45 – 3:15
Panel 3
Hon. Elyakim Rubinstein, Supreme Court of Israel (ret’d)
Susanna Mancini, University of Bologna and Columbia University
Nomi Stolzenberg, USC Gould School of Law
Julie Suk, Cardozo School of Law
Michael Stanislawski, Columbia University, moderator

CLE credit is available for the March 8 panels.  The CLE Materials are available here.

To register, please click HERE.