| Yaakov Neeman | |
|---|---|
| Date of birth | 6 September 1939 |
| Place of birth | Tel Aviv, Mandate Palestine |
| Party | Independent |
| Ministerial posts (current in bold) |
Minister of Justice Minister of Finance |
Ya'akov Ne'eman (Hebrew: יעקב נאמן, born 16 September 1939) is an Israeli lawyer and the current Minister of Justice.
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Ne'eman was born in Tel Aviv during the Mandate era. He studied law at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, earning a LL.B in 1964. In 1965, he earned a LL.M from New York University, and in 1968, a LL.D.
After returning to Israel, he has gone on to chair or be a member of numerous national and international committees, including the Executive Committee of Bar-Ilan University, the public committee appointed by the Speaker of the Knesset to determine salaries and other payments to government officials, the public committee appointed by the cabinet for the Drafting of the Constitution, the Public Committee on Educational Centers, the Public Committee on Privatisation Issues of El Al, the board of governors of Bank of Israel, the Committee for the Conversion Law, the National Committee for the Identification of Fallen Soldiers in Times of Emergency, Israel Atomic Energy Committee and the Central Committee of the World Bank.
Ne'eman was appointed Director General of the Finance Ministry in 1979, serving until 1981. In 1996 he was appointed to the Israeli cabinet by then-Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, despite not being a member of the Knesset. He was initially appointed Minister of Justice, before replacing Netanyahu as Minister of Finance in July 1997 (Netanyahu had temporarily replaced Dan Meridor who had left Likud to found Israel in the Centre). He served in the government until Netanyahu lost the 1999 elections.
On 31 March 2009, Ne'eman was appointed Justice Minister in the newly formed Netanyahu government.[1]
Ne'eman currently resides in Jerusalem in the Talbiya section.
On 8 December 2009, while serving as the Minister of Justice, Ne'eman was reported as saying that he believed that Halakha should gradually be made binding law in Israel, with the ultimate goal of making Israel a Halakhic state. But he later denied this,[2] emphasizing that "the Knesset is the legislator in Israel, and the interpretation of its laws is determined by the [civil] courts." He said that he advocated the use of religious courts only in an auxiliary role, to "resolve financial disputes in accordance with the principles of Jewish law. The court system in Israel is backed up, and therefore, cases should be transferred to an alternative system."
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