Moshe Ben-Ze'ev (; 8 December 1911 – 25 June 1995) was an Israeli jurist who served as

Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general (: attorneys general) or attorney-general (AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enf ...

between 1963 and 1968.

Legal career

Ben-Ze'ev was born in 1911 in

Luninets Luninyets or Luninets is a town in Brest Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Luninyets District. As of 2025, it has a population of 23,469. It is home to Luninets air base. History Luninyets is said to be mentioned in ...

in the Russian Empire (now in

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

). He

emigrated Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

in 1935. In the 1950s he worked as a judge in a

Haifa District Haifa District () is an administrative district surrounding the city of Haifa in Israel. The district is one of the seven administrative districts of Israel, and its capital is Haifa. The district land area is 864 km2 (299.3 mi2). D ...

court and had close ties with the ruling

Mapai Mapai (, an abbreviation for , ''Mifleget Poalei Eretz Yisrael'', ) was a Labor Zionist and democratic socialist political party in Israel, and was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger into the Israeli Labor Party in January ...

party.Lahav, P (1997
''Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century''
p.171 In early 1963 he replaced Gideon Hausner as Attorney General after Hausner resigned to enter politics. After concluding his term as Attorney General, Ben-Ze'ev opened a private practice with Aryeh Kamar. In 1980 he headed a commission to investigate abuse of civil servants who had exposed corruption. Ben-Ze'ev died in Jerusalem in June 1995 and was buried at the

Mount of Beatitudes The Mount of Beatitudes (, ''Har HaOsher'') is a hill in northern Israel, in the Korazim Plateau. It is the traditional site of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Location The site known as the Mount of Beatitudes is on the northwestern shore of th ...

References

20th-century Israeli judges Attorneys general of Israel 1911 births 1995 deaths Soviet emigrants to Mandatory Palestine Burials at Har HaMenuchot {{Israel-law-bio-stub