Shoshana Netanyahu ( he, שׁוֹשַׁנָּה נְתַנְיָהוּ; 6 April 1923 – 7 October 2022) was an Israeli judge and lawyer who was a justice at the Supreme Court of Israel. She was married to

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

Elisha Netanyahu (1912–1986), who was the uncle of

Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (; ; born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who served as the ninth prime minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2021. He is currently serving as Leader of the Opposition and Chairman of ...

, current

Prime Minister of Israel The prime minister of Israel ( he, רֹאשׁ הַמֶּמְשָׁלָה, Rosh HaMemshala, Head of the Government, Hebrew acronym: he2, רה״מ; ar, رئيس الحكومة, ''Ra'īs al-Ḥukūma'') is the head of government and chief exec ...

Biography

Netanyahu was born Shoshana Shenburg in 1923, in the

Free City of Danzig The Free City of Danzig (german: Freie Stadt Danzig; pl, Wolne Miasto Gdańsk; csb, Wòlny Gard Gduńsk) was a city-state under the protection of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gda ...

(now

Gdańsk Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...

). She immigrated to

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East J ...

with her family in 1924, and settled in the

Bat Galim Bat Galim ( he, בת גלים, ''lit.'' Daughter of the Waves) is a neighborhood of Haifa, Israel, located at the foot of Mount Carmel on the Mediterranean coast. Bat Galim is known for its promenade and sandy beaches. The neighborhood spans from R ...

neighborhood of

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropoli ...

. She graduated from the Reali High School in Haifa 1941, and took British Mandate-operated legal classes. Netanyahu worked at the law firm of S. Horowitz, and then spent a year serving as assistant prosecutor in the Israel Air Force. She returned to her previous position, and two years later moved to the advocate firm, Friedman and Komisar. In 1949, she married professor Elisha Netanyahu; their elder son was born in 1951. In 1953 the family left for a sabbatical at Stanford University, where their second son was born. In 1960 she returned to Friedman and Komisar. In 1969 she was appointed a judge on the Magistrates Court in Haifa and from 1974 to 1981 she served as a Haifa District Court judge. In 1981, she became the second female Israel Supreme Court justice, after

Miriam Ben-Porat Miriam Ben-Porat ( he, מרים בן פורת, née Shinezon, 26 April 1918 – 26 July 2012) was an Israeli jurist. She was the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Israel and the State Comptroller of Israel from 1988–1998. Biography ...

's retirement. She retired from the Supreme Court in 1993. During her tenure, she also headed a national committee on

health care in Israel Healthcare in Israel is universal and participation in a medical insurance plan is compulsory. All Israeli residents are entitled to basic health care as a fundamental right. The Israeli healthcare system is based on the National Health Insuranc ...

from 1988 to 1990, which led to major legislative changes. Following her retirement from the bench, Netanyahu was an adjunct lecturer at the

University of Haifa The University of Haifa ( he, אוניברסיטת חיפה Arabic: جامعة حيفا) is a university located on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Founded in 1963, the University of Haifa received full academic accreditation in 1972, becoming I ...

(1993–1998) and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1993–2002). In 1993, she received the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism award. She received an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad ho ...

from the University of Haifa in 1997. In 2002 she was made an

honorary citizen Honorary citizenship is a status bestowed by a city or other government on a foreign or native individual whom it considers to be especially admirable or otherwise worthy of the distinction. The honour usually is symbolic and does not confer an ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

. Netanyahu had two children: Nathan (b. 1951), a professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...

Bar-Ilan University Bar-Ilan University (BIU, he, אוניברסיטת בר-אילן, ''Universitat Bar-Ilan'') is a public research university in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is Israel's second-largest academic ...

, and Dan (b. 1954), an

information systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems are composed by four components: task, people ...

auditor.

References

External links

* * Martin Edelman, "The Judicial Elite of Israel", ''International Political Science Review'', Vol. 13, No. 3 (July 1992), pp. 235–248. * Shmuel Penchas, Mordechai Shani, "Redesigning a national health-care system: the Israeli experience", ''International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance'', volume 8 (1995), issue 2, pp. 9–17. {{DEFAULTSORT:Netanyahu, Shoshana 1923 births 2022 deaths 20th-century Israeli lawyers 21st-century Israeli lawyers Israeli people of Polish-Jewish descent Israeli women judges Israeli women lawyers Judges of the Supreme Court of Israel Lawyers from Haifa Shoshana Polish emigrants to Mandatory Palestine 20th-century women lawyers 21st-century women lawyers 20th-century women judges 20th-century Israeli judges