1918-2012
Miriam Ben-Porat, first female Supreme Court justice and crusading state comptroller, 94 Feisty jurist, hailed for spearheading battles against corruption, diesMiriam Ben-Porat, the first woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court and the first female state comptroller, died on Thursday at the age of 94.
The jurist was remembered as a pioneer who broke Israel’s gender barrier and led the fight against corruption at Israel’s highest levels, turning the office of State Comptroller into a feared and influential position.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu said Ben-Porat was a trailblazer. “Her modesty, her upholding of principles and her dedication to the state are a model for equal opportunity and the supremacy of the rule of law in Israel,” he said in a statement.
Born Miriam Shinezon in Russia in January 1918, she was the youngest of seven siblings. She grew up in Lithuania, and in 1936 left her family behind when she migrated to British-controlled Palestine. Upon her arrival, she changed her name to Ben-Porat. Much of her family perished in the Holocaust.
In 1945, Ben-Porat finished her legal studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After working in the State Attorney’s office for 10 years (1949-59), she was appointed as a judge in the Jerusalem District Court. During her time at the district court, Ben-Porat also taught law at the Hebrew University. In 1975 she was named president of the court.
Two years later, Ben-Porat became the first woman appointed to the Israeli Supreme Court, where she stayed until reaching the mandatory retirement age for judges in 1988. During her last four years in the court Ben-Porat was named as deputy to the court’s president.
After leaving the bench at age 70, Ben-Porat was elected by the Knesset as the first — and to date the only — female state comptroller. She was reelected to the post for a second term after five years.
She brought a new activism to the post, bolstering its prominence and reputation, and her reports with a feisty, no-nonsense style.
She was central to the exposure of corruption that led to the prosecution and jailing of Shas’s interior minister Aryeh Deri, forced an overhaul of the water commission in 1990, confronted the Shin Bet over the use of torture in investigations, issued scathing reports on political party funding violations, and forced several changes in police investigating mechanisms, defying the limitations of the State Comptroller’s authority to dramatically raise the office’s profile and influence.
She also faulted Israel’s preparation for the absorption of Jews from the Soviet Union, declaring in 1990: “One can only feel pained at what the government failed to do, did badly and did in a short-sighted manner in its preparations for absorbing the immigration wave.”
One of her decisions was to force all political parties to reveal the names of their donors and financial backers.
In 1991 she was awarded the Israel Prize, considered the country’s highest honor, for her contribution to the State of Israel and Israeli society. In 1995 the Movement for Quality Government in Israel honored her with its highest award. Ben-Porat was also awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Pennsylvania (1993) and Hebrew Union College (2000).
In 1998, after 10 years as the state’s watchdog and over 50 years in Israel’s judicial system, Ben-Porat retired from judicial life and focused on writing and social involvement. In 2004 the municipality of Jerusalem presented her with the city’s highest award, Yakir Yerushalaim, or worthy citizen of Jerusalem.
Labor Party head Shelly Yahchimovich called Ben-Porat a “role model.” In a statement, Yachimovich stressed that the jurist was the only woman to act as state comptroller, and thanked her for a life-long fight against corruption.
Ben-Porat, who had a daughter and three grandchildren, was to be laid to rest at Jerusalem’s Givat Shaul cemetery at 7 p.m. on Thursday.
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