Israel Law Review
Journal Data
| Type | JOURNAL |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (US) |
| ISSN | 0021-2237 / 2047-9336 |
| Scopus | 15718 |
| Wikidata | Q12403262 |
| OpenAlex | S181618396 |
| Website | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/israel-law-review |
| Total publications | 35 |
| Coverage period | 1966 - 2026 |
| Country | GB |
| Language | EN |
| Indexing | Scopus indexed |
| Cited by | 22 |
| Impact factor | 0.667 |
| SJR | 0.547 (Q1) |
| SNIP | 1.606 |
| CiteScore | 4.1 |
| h-index | 3 |
| i10-index | 1 |
| Female authorship share | 20% |
This journal focuses on Israeli law, which is a specific national legal discipline. While legal anthropology is a subfield, this venue's scope is primarily legal doctrine and jurisprudence, with only a loose and occasional intersection with anthropological concerns
Law · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Conflict of Laws and Jurisdiction · Criminal Law and Evidence · Diverse Scientific and Economic Studies · European and International Contract Law · European and International Law Studies · European Criminal Justice and Data Protection · Global Peace and Security Dynamics
Future-Proofing Israeli Surveillance Law
The regulation of emerging technologies often involves prolonged legislative processes that demand significant attention and resources. Setting a future-proof framework is therefore imperative: not only to accommodate innovation, but to hedge against the uncertainties that render detailed legislation obsolete. The drafting of legal frameworks to regulate emerging technologies increasingly engages a variety of future-proofing techniques. Surveilla…
Converting Narratives and Alleviating Constitutional Inequality through Taxation
This article explores the potential effect of converting a constitutional narrative into a tax narrative that might help to address a constitutional controversy. The article examines, as a case study, the deep and long-standing issue of inequality in mandatory conscription. All efforts made over the decades to resolve the conflict or reduce its scope have failed. The article sets up a novel framework by conceptualising mandatory service as a ‘tax…
Bending the Rules
This article examines the transformative impact of large language models (LLMs) on online content moderation, revealing a critical gap between platforms’ rule-based policies and their AI-driven enforcement mechanisms. Using Facebook’s hate speech moderation policies and practices as a case study, we identify a paradox: while content policies are increasingly rule-oriented, AI-driven enforcement seems to operate in a standard-like manner. This dis…
The EU’s Involvement in the Resolution of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict
Since the 1970s the EU has expressed its continuous commitment to contributing to the resolution of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict. This commitment, which is increasingly linked to its obligation to advance the rule of international law, is manifested in its support for the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel (the two-state solution). The article contributes to the literature on the EU’s efforts in conflic…
The Two Revolutions of Israel's National Identity
The judicial overhaul, designed to weaken the judiciary and unleash governmental power from its structural checks, should be understood, we argue, as part of a deeper transformation of Israel's constitutional identity. At its core, this transformation is not about ‘empowering the people’ but rather about questioning Israel's commitment to the fundamental principle of equal citizenship, mainly regarding the permissibility of preferring the interes…
Self-Determination, Occupation and the Authority to Exploit Natural Resources
In two recent cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the General Court (at first instance), the High Court of Justice of England and Wales and the Grand Chamber of the CJEU found that a trade agreement and a fisheries agreement between Morocco and the European Union cannot be applied to occupied Western Sahara without the consent of its people. In spite of the fact that it is the general view that Western Sahara is under …
An Article that Changed the Course of History?
Yehuda Blum's article, ostensibly devoted to an examination of the lawfulness of a military order under the law of occupation, actually explored a preliminary question – whether Jordan had valid title to the West Bank (referred to as ‘Judea and Samaria’). Concluding that Jordan had no title, Blum concluded that the law of occupation did not apply. This reflection revisits Blum's thesis. It suggests that Blum's argument failed to elucidate the rel…
The Challenge of Reconciling Constitutional Eternity Clauses with Popular Sovereignty
Since the concept of democracy made its premiere, popular sovereignty has always been one of its fundamental characteristics. Nevertheless, many democracies have adopted eternity clauses (non-amendable constitutional provisions) as well as the unconstitutional constitutional amendment doctrine (the judicial power to strike down amendments to the constitution on substantive grounds), seemingly betraying the established democratic tradition. Includ…
Joining the Jewish People
The Law of Return grants every Jew the right to immigrate to Israel; this also applies to non-Jewish relatives of Jews. The Citizenship Law grants every such “returnee” automatic citizenship. The wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union in the 90s brought a large number of immigrants not considered Jewish under the definition accepted in Israel. Is this large group of Israeli citizens—who do not, at least formally, belong to the Jewish pe…
The Israeli Millet System
Israel still maintains the personal status system (millet) that it inherited from the Ottoman Empire under which the courts of fourteen ethno-religious communities are granted exclusive jurisdiction over matters of marriage and divorce and concurrent jurisdiction with the civil courts in regard to such matters as maintenance and inheritance. But, why Israel, as a highly centralized and democratic polity, has maintained the old millet system which…
Democracy and Human Dignity
The Parliamentary Council, the constitutional assembly for the German Basic Law, split over the question whether the guarantee of human dignity should be understood as the result of a democratic decision or as the incorporation of a pre-existing universal principle of Christian origin. The subsequent constitutional practice was dominated by a moral understanding of the norm that stressed the contradiction between democracy and human dignity. This…
“Otherness” as the Underlying Principle in Israel's Asylum Regime
This Article aims to provide the first thorough description of the developing asylum system in the State of Israel. It argues that despite the inherent moral and doctrinal differences between asylum and immigration regimes, the Israeli asylum system is essentially an extension of Israel's immigration and citizenship regime, which excludes the non-Jewish refugees and frames the refugee as the “other;” with the Palestinians and other enemy national…
Administering the Territories
This article seeks to evaluate Israel's implementation of the international law of occupation in the territories which it came to control after the Six-Day War, from a new perspective. Many scholars have criticized or justified specific Israeli policies by comparing them to specific norms of international law. Contrary to this scholarship, this article addresses the questions at the core of current debates over the implementation of international…
Levirate Marriage in the State of Israel
The article examines the approach of leading rabbis toward levirate marriages following the establishment of the State of Israel. Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Herzog supported the abolishment of levirate marriages and attempted to impose on all ethnic communities the Ashkenazi approach, which since the 13th century favored chalitza . Chief Sephardic Rabbi Uziel supported rabbi Herzog although the levirate commandment takes precedence over chalitza in th…
The External Rights of Cohabiting Couples in Israel
One of the outstanding products of civil-secular law in Israel is the institution of cohabitation. In Israeli law, the term “cohabiting couples” is used to refer to couples who conduct marriage-like relationships, but who, from a legal point of view, are not given the legal status of married couples. In Israel there is a trend toward narrowing the legal gap between cohabiting couples and married couples, and broadening the conditions that confer …
The Status of Arabic in Israel
The status of Arabic in Israel gives rise to question. Israel is a rare case of an ethnic nation-state that grants the language of minority group with a legal status which is prima facie one of equality. Both Hebrew and Arabic are the official languages of the State of Israel. What are the reasons for this special state of affairs? The answer is threefold: historic, sociological and legal. In various ways the potential inherent in the legal statu…
Personal Law and Human Rights in India and Israel
Although India and Israel differ dramatically in size, population, and affluence, there are many important similarities. Each is the contemporary vehicle of an old and resilient civilization that expresses a distinctive, influential and enduring arrangement of the various facets of human experience. Each of these cultures underwent a prolonged colonial experience in which its traditions were disrupted and subordinated to a hegemonic European Chri…
Democracy and the New Constitutionalism in Israel
In a recent paper, I argue that the “new constitutionalism” — the transformation in the relations between courts and representative institutions that has swept the world and that is now sweeping Israel too — can best be understood as one of those “changes of everything so that everything would remain the same”. The promotion of courts and the demotion of legislatures through the judicial enforcement of “rigid” Charters and Bills of Rights has “le…
The Israeli Basic Laws' (Potentially) Fatal Flaw
For generations the question of the political form worthy of its apparent telos has occupied the best legal, philosophical and rabbinical minds of the Jewish tradition. Resolution of the political question presupposes resolution of the theological question of whether the Jewish people indeed have a unique telos , and whether this telos is linked to a particular political or social form. This ongoing deliberation is one of the defining features of…
In Our Image
My story is full of holes. The first hole, or rather, ditch, was dug in 1930 by the municipality of Haifa. An Arab, Dr. Caesar Khoury, fell into the ditch and fractured his shoulder-blade. Could Dr. Khoury recover? The law of torts of mandatory Palestine was found in the Mejelle — an Ottoman code of Moslem civil law. Did the Mejelle provide a remedy in the case of personal injury? “Unfortunately,” said Judge Francis Baker, who delivered the opini…
The Xenokritai in Babatha's Archive
Babatha had a dispute with the guardians of Jesus, her son (from her first marriage). We do not know the reasons for this dispute, however, she seems to have been interested in the formula by which, under Roman law, the tutor could be called upon to account for the loss that the ward had suffered. Hence, we can find three nearly identical Greek translations of the actio tutelae in her archive (about 124/25 A.D.). Here we will only examine the app…
Aspects of Foreign Relations under the Israeli-Palestinian Agreements on Interim Self-Government Arrangements for the West Bank and Gaza
In each one of the three main agreements which Israel has concluded to date with the PLO as part of the current peace process, the issue of foreign relations has received special treatment. This reflects the fact that, while the transfer of a number of spheres of authority to the Palestinian autonomous entity has serious practical ramifications, the treatment of the sphere of foreign relations has an added effect on the very nature of the autonom…
The Teaching of Religion in Government Funded Schools in Israel
Religious education in Israel is inextricably linked with the more general aspects of the complex role of religion in Israel, which in turn cannot be understood without a basic understanding of Israel as a Jewish state, as well as that of the traditional status of religious-ethnic-national groups in the Middle East. A comprehensive discussion of these complex issues would take us well beyond the confines of this paper. Thus, we will discuss them …
Political Agreements — A Critical Introduction
Political agreements are an integral part of the political system in Israel. For various reasons — mainly the proportional representation electoral system and the existence of a “third bloc” of religious parties that do no fit into the centre-right and centre-left political alliances — no political party has ever enjoyed an absolute majority in the Knesset. The dominant parties have therefore always had to rely on coalition agreements with smalle…
The United States and the Status of Jerusalem 1947–1984
The United States has been involved in the question of Jerusalem ever since the American government assumed a major role in promoting adoption of the Palestine Partition Resolution at the United Nations in 1947. The continuing centrality of the Jerusalem issue in the Arab-Israeli dispute is attested to by the references to Jerusalem in the 1982 Reagan Plan for Peace in the Middle East. Even more significant is the fact that although the Jerusalem…
Personal Law and Human Rights in India and Israel
Although India and Israel differ dramatically in size, population, and affluence, there are many important similarities. Each is the contemporary vehicle of an old and resilient civilization that expresses a distinctive, influential and enduring arrangement of the various facets of human experience. Each of these cultures underwent a prolonged colonial experience in which its traditions were disrupted and subordinated to a hegemonic European Chri…
Self-Determination, Occupation and the Authority to Exploit Natural Resources
In two recent cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the General Court (at first instance), the High Court of Justice of England and Wales and the Grand Chamber of the CJEU found that a trade agreement and a fisheries agreement between Morocco and the European Union cannot be applied to occupied Western Sahara without the consent of its people. In spite of the fact that it is the general view that Western Sahara is under …
The Xenokritai in Babatha's Archive
Babatha had a dispute with the guardians of Jesus, her son (from her first marriage). We do not know the reasons for this dispute, however, she seems to have been interested in the formula by which, under Roman law, the tutor could be called upon to account for the loss that the ward had suffered. Hence, we can find three nearly identical Greek translations of the actio tutelae in her archive (about 124/25 A.D.). Here we will only examine the app…
The Kibbutz
A visit to one of Israel's collective settlements, the Kibbutzim, has in the last decades become an essential part of the normal itinerary of the foreign tourist. So great is the pride which Israelis take in this form of settlement (of which there were 230 in 1965) that a visit to one is assured by the tourist's unwillingness to offend his hosts, if not by his interest in the Kibbutz. It is therefore interesting to note that the Israel Legislatur…
Israel Law
Interest in the legal system of Israel is enhanced by the circumstances in which the new State came into being. The circumstances of place are peculiar, in that the territory of Israel is situated at the cross-roads of two continents and at the very focus of movements of upheaval by which they are both so deeply stirred. No less unusual are the circumstances of time. The proclamation of independence, for all its novelty, was not in the nature of …
Law and Religion in Israel
The status and place of religion in the law of Israel has been the subject of public controversy, leading to highly emotional outbursts and fervent debate. It is not surprising, therefore, that lawyers and serious writers have shunned this stormy field and have preferred calmer subjects. But this is not the only reason for avoiding a legal discussion of religion in Israel. The subject is strewn with difficulties, legal and extra-legal. The absenc…
The Missing Reversioner
Two recent decisions handed down by the Hebron magistrate, Mr. Hussein El-Shajuchi, and by the Bethlehem magistrate, Mr. Tawfik El-Sakka, on February 5, 1968 and on February 27, 1968, respectively, have brought to the fore some interesting legal problems arising from the Six Day War of June, 1967 as a result of which Judea and Samaria (formerly known as the “West Bank” of the Kingdom of Jordan) have come under Israeli control. The immediate cause…
The Problem of Jewish Law in a Jewish State
Introduction : With the increasing tendency in Israel to replace the old Ottoman civil law, thefamiliar question of the reception of Jewish (talmudic) law has once again become the subject of lively discussion. In his policy speech in the Knesset the then new Minister of Justice, Mr. Y. S. Shapiro, declared as his objective the gradual severance of Israel law from the present pervasive influence of the English legal system. He was too cautious to…
The Penology of the Talmud
Penology, or the science of punishment, has three different aspects: the technique of punishment, or the character of the various punitive measures and the means by which they are enforced and implemented; the psychology of punishment, probing into the function of punitive action, both in so far as the victim, that is the person punished, is affected, and in so far as such action is calculated to satisfy the needs or purposes of the punishing aut…
Prospective Revision of Precedent
Innovations in case law have traditionally always had retroactive effect also, first on the case in question, and therefore on past conduct, and then, to the extent that authority attaches to the precedent or it is at least followed in practice, on other cases subsequently heard, although the conduct involved here also preceded the declaration of the new rule. Justice Holmes, in a dissenting opinion of 1910, wrote: “I know of no authority in this…
Infusion of the Common Law into the Legal System of Israel
At the end of the Ottoman rule the legal system in Israel was ripe for change. The British conquest was welcomed, at least by the Jewish population, and under the circumstances there was no objection to absorbing the legal system of the new conqueror. British conquest in 1917 brought military rule but by 1920 a civil administration headed by High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel had already been installed. On July 24, 1922 the League of Nations be…
Who is not a Jew?–The Medieval Discussion
While contemporary Jews debate “Who is a Jew?”, medievals found the question “Who is not a Jew?” much more relevant. Halakhic standards were clear enough on entrance to the community: birth or conversion decided the matter, and the latter provided no more problems than did the average halakhic norm. The institution of conversion was not quite as old as that of birth, but it too had a respectable history of Talmudic discussion and stable internati…
Jacob Robinson — In Memoriam
Jacob, son of David and Bluma Robinson and the eldest of seven brothers, was born in the little Lithuanian village of Serijai, near Suwalk on the German frontier, then part of the Czarist Empire. Among his distinguished forebears was Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, author of the Mishna commentary Tosephot Yom Tov. His father, a well-known scholar, teacher and maskil of Wistyten (Vishtinetz) and a prominent member of the Jewish community, had been i…
The United States and the Status of Jerusalem 1947–1984
The United States has been involved in the question of Jerusalem ever since the American government assumed a major role in promoting adoption of the Palestine Partition Resolution at the United Nations in 1947. The continuing centrality of the Jerusalem issue in the Arab-Israeli dispute is attested to by the references to Jerusalem in the 1982 Reagan Plan for Peace in the Middle East. Even more significant is the fact that although the Jerusalem…
The Teaching of Religion in Government Funded Schools in Israel
Religious education in Israel is inextricably linked with the more general aspects of the complex role of religion in Israel, which in turn cannot be understood without a basic understanding of Israel as a Jewish state, as well as that of the traditional status of religious-ethnic-national groups in the Middle East. A comprehensive discussion of these complex issues would take us well beyond the confines of this paper. Thus, we will discuss them …
Political Agreements — A Critical Introduction
Political agreements are an integral part of the political system in Israel. For various reasons — mainly the proportional representation electoral system and the existence of a “third bloc” of religious parties that do no fit into the centre-right and centre-left political alliances — no political party has ever enjoyed an absolute majority in the Knesset. The dominant parties have therefore always had to rely on coalition agreements with smalle…
Aspects of Foreign Relations under the Israeli-Palestinian Agreements on Interim Self-Government Arrangements for the West Bank and Gaza
In each one of the three main agreements which Israel has concluded to date with the PLO as part of the current peace process, the issue of foreign relations has received special treatment. This reflects the fact that, while the transfer of a number of spheres of authority to the Palestinian autonomous entity has serious practical ramifications, the treatment of the sphere of foreign relations has an added effect on the very nature of the autonom…
In Our Image
My story is full of holes. The first hole, or rather, ditch, was dug in 1930 by the municipality of Haifa. An Arab, Dr. Caesar Khoury, fell into the ditch and fractured his shoulder-blade. Could Dr. Khoury recover? The law of torts of mandatory Palestine was found in the Mejelle — an Ottoman code of Moslem civil law. Did the Mejelle provide a remedy in the case of personal injury? “Unfortunately,” said Judge Francis Baker, who delivered the opini…
The Xenokritai in Babatha's Archive
Babatha had a dispute with the guardians of Jesus, her son (from her first marriage). We do not know the reasons for this dispute, however, she seems to have been interested in the formula by which, under Roman law, the tutor could be called upon to account for the loss that the ward had suffered. Hence, we can find three nearly identical Greek translations of the actio tutelae in her archive (about 124/25 A.D.). Here we will only examine the app…
The Israeli Basic Laws' (Potentially) Fatal Flaw
For generations the question of the political form worthy of its apparent telos has occupied the best legal, philosophical and rabbinical minds of the Jewish tradition. Resolution of the political question presupposes resolution of the theological question of whether the Jewish people indeed have a unique telos , and whether this telos is linked to a particular political or social form. This ongoing deliberation is one of the defining features of…
Democracy and the New Constitutionalism in Israel
In a recent paper, I argue that the “new constitutionalism” — the transformation in the relations between courts and representative institutions that has swept the world and that is now sweeping Israel too — can best be understood as one of those “changes of everything so that everything would remain the same”. The promotion of courts and the demotion of legislatures through the judicial enforcement of “rigid” Charters and Bills of Rights has “le…
Personal Law and Human Rights in India and Israel
Although India and Israel differ dramatically in size, population, and affluence, there are many important similarities. Each is the contemporary vehicle of an old and resilient civilization that expresses a distinctive, influential and enduring arrangement of the various facets of human experience. Each of these cultures underwent a prolonged colonial experience in which its traditions were disrupted and subordinated to a hegemonic European Chri…
The Status of Arabic in Israel
The status of Arabic in Israel gives rise to question. Israel is a rare case of an ethnic nation-state that grants the language of minority group with a legal status which is prima facie one of equality. Both Hebrew and Arabic are the official languages of the State of Israel. What are the reasons for this special state of affairs? The answer is threefold: historic, sociological and legal. In various ways the potential inherent in the legal statu…
Levirate Marriage in the State of Israel
The article examines the approach of leading rabbis toward levirate marriages following the establishment of the State of Israel. Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Herzog supported the abolishment of levirate marriages and attempted to impose on all ethnic communities the Ashkenazi approach, which since the 13th century favored chalitza . Chief Sephardic Rabbi Uziel supported rabbi Herzog although the levirate commandment takes precedence over chalitza in th…
The External Rights of Cohabiting Couples in Israel
One of the outstanding products of civil-secular law in Israel is the institution of cohabitation. In Israeli law, the term “cohabiting couples” is used to refer to couples who conduct marriage-like relationships, but who, from a legal point of view, are not given the legal status of married couples. In Israel there is a trend toward narrowing the legal gap between cohabiting couples and married couples, and broadening the conditions that confer …
Administering the Territories
This article seeks to evaluate Israel's implementation of the international law of occupation in the territories which it came to control after the Six-Day War, from a new perspective. Many scholars have criticized or justified specific Israeli policies by comparing them to specific norms of international law. Contrary to this scholarship, this article addresses the questions at the core of current debates over the implementation of international…
Democracy and Human Dignity
The Parliamentary Council, the constitutional assembly for the German Basic Law, split over the question whether the guarantee of human dignity should be understood as the result of a democratic decision or as the incorporation of a pre-existing universal principle of Christian origin. The subsequent constitutional practice was dominated by a moral understanding of the norm that stressed the contradiction between democracy and human dignity. This…
“Otherness” as the Underlying Principle in Israel's Asylum Regime
This Article aims to provide the first thorough description of the developing asylum system in the State of Israel. It argues that despite the inherent moral and doctrinal differences between asylum and immigration regimes, the Israeli asylum system is essentially an extension of Israel's immigration and citizenship regime, which excludes the non-Jewish refugees and frames the refugee as the “other;” with the Palestinians and other enemy national…