JUDGES AND LAWYERS IN ERETZ-ISRAEL tells the story of the local Judicial System – Judges, Courts, Lawyers – in the last 18 years of the Ottoman rule (1900-1918) and the first 12 years of the British rule (1918-1930) in Eretz-Israel (Palestine).
The book answers, amongst others, the following questions:
• Why is the Israeli Judicial System built in its present structure?
• Who was the first Jewish lawyer in Eretz-Israel (Palestine)?
• Was the Ottoman Judicial System really so infested with corruption? What were the relations between David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Sharett (Shertok) when they were Law students in Constantinople before the First World War?
• Who established the new Judicial System in Jerusalem after the British conquest of Eretz-Israel (Palestine) in 1918?
• How were “Native” judges – Arabs and Jews – nominated for the first time in Eretz-Israel (Palestine)?
• Who was the first President of the Supreme Court of Eretz-Israel (Palestine) and why he was forced to resign?
• How did the Judicial System of Eretz-Israel (Palestine) fight for its independence?
• Who was the Jewish judge that was dismissed from the Judiciary in 1930?
• What is the connection of the Eretz-Israel (Palestine) Judicial System and the love-affair between an elderly millionairess from Philadelphia (U.S.A.) and a dashing farmer-politician from Zichron-Yaakov who was 25 years youngrer than her ?
The book is based mainly on primary sources – letters, documents, protocols etc. - discovered by the author in public and private archives in Israel and England.