JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

German-Jewish Epoch, 1743–1933 (2002). His works have appeared
in English, Hebrew, French, German, Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese, and Japanese.
ELON, BINYAMIN (Benny; 1954– ), Israeli rabbi and politician,
member of Knesset since the Fourteenth Knesset. Born
in Jerusalem, the son of former Supreme Court justice Menachem
*Elon, he studied at Yeshivat Merkaz ha-Rav in Jerusalem
and the Idra Kolel in the Golan Heights. He served in
the IDF in the artillery corps. He was ordained as a rabbi in
1978. In 1979–82 Elon served as rabbi in Kibbutz Sheluḥot in
the Beit She‘an Valley. In 1983–85 he was an emissary of the
Jewish Agency to the Jewish students organizations in the
United States, and after his return taught at the Makhon Meir
and Atteret Kohanim yeshivot in Jerusalem. He settled with his
family in Bet-El near Ramallah in 1982 and in 1987 founded
there, together with his wife, Emuna, the Sifriyat Bet-El publishing
house, and the Tov Ro‘i Institute, where he published
Abraham Isaac *Kook’s talmudic commentaries. In 1990 he
established the Bet Orot Yeshivah, heading it until 1996, when
he was elected to the Knesset.
Elon was an active opponent of the Oslo Accords and
consequently founded the Emunim Movement, which fought
against the establishment of a Palestinian authority, which he
viewed from the start as a terrorist entity. He maintained that
it was legitimate to discuss a transfer of the Palestinian population
to a Jordanian-Palestinian state in Transjordan, and
argued that the refugee camps should be dismantled, and the
refugees resettled.
Elon entered the Fourteenth Knesset on the list of Reḥavam
*Ze’evi’s Moledet party, and despite the extreme views that
he represented soon came to be known for his mild manner.
He promoted the unification of the various right-wing parties
in the Knesset and ran in the elections to the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth Knessets on the National Union list. Following the
assassination of Ze’evi in October 2001, Elon was appointed
minister of tourism, but resigned from Ariel *Sharon’s government
in March 2002 because of Sharon’s agreement that the
assassins of Ze’evi be held in prison in Jericho instead of being
turned over to Israel. He was again appointed minister of tourism
in the government formed by Sharon after the elections to
the Sixteenth Knesset. During both his terms in the Ministry
of Tourism he contended with the drop in tourism to Israel
due to the second Intifada, by encouraging Christian tourism
to the Holy Land and the development of tourist sites in Judea
and Samaria. The National Union objected fundamentally to
Sharon’s disengagement plan, and the removal of Jewish settlements
from parts of Ereẓ Israel, and as a result its ministers
were dismissed by Ariel Sharon from the government in June
2004, before the government voted on the issue.
Since his dismissal from the government Elon has been
an active member in the Finance Committee.
From 1990 Elon was active in establishing various associations
engaged in the purchase of property and buildings in
Elon, Menachem
East Jerusalem and the renewal of Jewish settlement in them.
He was also active in renewing Jewish settlement in Bethlehem,
in the vicinity of Rachel’s tomb. He maintained close ties
with Jewish communities abroad and communities of Christians
who support Israel throughout the world.
His wife, EMUNA, an educator and writer, served as the
prime minister’s adviser on women in 1996–97, and in this
capacity led the establishment of the National Authority for
the Advancement of Women. She has written numerous children’s
books.
[Susan Hattis Rolef (2nd ed.)]
ELON (Fetter), MENACHEM (1922– ), Israeli jurist and
Supreme Court justice. Born in Dueseldorf, Germany, Elon
immigrated to Palestine in 1935. After eight years of study at
the Hebron Yeshivah in Jerusalem, where he was ordained as
a rabbi, Elon was awarded an M.A. degree in humanities (cum
laude), and a doctor of laws degree (cum laude) from the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, where he subsequently taught
for over 40 years. From 1959 to 1966 Elon was adviser on Jewish
Law to the Israel Ministry of Justice. From 1966 he taught
Jewish Law at the Hebrew University, where he founded and
directed the Institute for Research in Jewish Law.
Elon was appointed to the Supreme Court of Israel in
1977 and was named deputy president of the Court in 1988. He
was awarded the Israel Prize in 1979 for his classic work, the
authoritative four-volume Ha-Mishpat ha-Ivri (Eng. version:
Jewish Law: History, Sources, Principles, 1994). It compares
Jewish legal traditions and modern legal systems, emphasizing
both the differences between them and their common denominators.
The work became the classic textbook in universities
and law schools in Israel and abroad in Jewish Law.
The first part of the work deals with the history and elements
of Jewish Law, its scientific study and its impact – as a
living legal system – on Jewish history and society. The second
section deals systematically with the various legal sources of
Jewish Law such as exegesis (midrash) and interpretation, legislation,
custom (minhag), precedent, and legal reasoning. The
third section is devoted to a broad description of the literary
sources of Jewish Law, from biblical times until the modern
era, including the basic sources (Bible, Mishnah, and Talmud)
and their interpretation, the commentaries and novellae literature,
the codificatory literature, and the vast responsa literature.
The fourth part deals extensively with the implementation
of Jewish Law in the modern legal system, particularly in
Israeli legislation and case law. Elon, together with his predecessors
(such as Judges S. *Assaf, M. Zilberg, and H. *Cohen),
made a remarkable and most important contribution to the
implementation of Jewish Law in hundreds of judgments he
wrote while serving as a Supreme Court judge. Amongst his
most important and renowned judgments are the decision enabling
women to serve as active local religious council members,
a decision forbidding active euthanasia, and a decision
forbidding imprisonment for civil debt.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 367