Edna Arbel

Edna Arbel was born Edna Englander in Jerusalem on 22 June 1944. Her father, Yitzhak Englander (1915 to 2002), was born in Czechoslovakia, immigrated to Mandatory Palestine from Poland in 1933, studied law and Arabic at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and practised law in Jerusalem. Her mother, Tova Estreicher (1917 to 1989), was born in Budapest, came to Palestine at the age of two and worked as a civil servant in the Ministry of Justice. Her younger sister, Yehudit (Judith), was born in 1951. Edna was educated in Haifa.

She began military service in 1962 and studied law at the same time at the Tel Aviv extension of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, completing her law studies in 1967. After interning in private practice she was admitted to the Israel Bar in 1969. The Jewish Women's Archive records that she later studied for a master's degree at Bar-Ilan University. After her Supreme Court appointment, journalist Yoav Yitzhak reported that her official CV had for years listed a completed master's degree although she held a bachelor's degree only, and the CV on the judiciary's website was then corrected.

After a short period at the Hayak law firm in Tel Aviv, Arbel joined the Central District office of the State Attorney in 1972, prosecuting murder, security, violence, drug and white collar cases. She also represented the Justice Ministry on the district planning committee and sat on the psychiatric committee that reviewed the release of mentally ill offenders. In 1984 she was appointed Central District Attorney. She served on the committee that examined the Bus 300 affair, chaired the committee that drew up rules for undercover agents, and was on the staff of the Kahan Commission into the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

In 1988 she became a judge of the Tel Aviv District Court, sitting on appellate panels in civil and criminal cases, while teaching evidence and criminal procedure at Tel Aviv University. In January 1996 she succeeded Dorit Beinisch as State Attorney and also acted for the Attorney General in his absence. Over eight years and six justice ministers the prosecution service grew from about 700 to about 1,040 lawyers. She chaired the Prosecution 2000 committee and a committee that wrote an ethical code for state prosecutors, and took part in international talks on the International Criminal Court.

High profile matters during her tenure included the prosecution of Maariv publisher Ofer Nimrodi, which ended in a plea deal and a prison sentence; the party financing indictment of Ehud Olmert, who was acquitted; the indictment of Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman, who resigned and was acquitted; the indictment of Rafael Eitan, who was acquitted; and the prosecution of Avigdor Kahalani. She recommended charging Benjamin Netanyahu in the Amedi affair and Ariel Sharon and his son Gilad in the Greek Island affair, recommendations that the Attorneys General Elyakim Rubinstein and Menachem Mazuz did not adopt.

Nominated with the support of Chief Justice Aharon Barak, Arbel was chosen by the Judicial Selection Committee on 6 May 2004 by seven of its nine members, with minister Benny Elon opposed and Dorit Beinisch abstaining because of their close friendship. She took office on 24 May 2004, after a petition against the appointment by journalist Yoav Yitzhak was rejected. Her judgments often reflected concern for distributive justice and for the weaker side: she consistently sided with consumers against insurers, argued in minority opinions for narrower limitation periods so that injured people would not lose their claims, and backed broader benefits for disabled IDF veterans. She was among the justices who in 2009 struck down the law to create a privately run prison, and in 2013 supported ousting mayors who were facing criminal proceedings. In 2012 the Justice Minister appointed her chair of the advisory committee on criminal procedure and evidence. She retired on 22 June 2014 at the mandatory age of 70.

In 1964 she married Uri (Ori) Arbel (1940 to 2016), a career officer in the Israel Defense Forces who retired with the rank of colonel. They had three daughters: Sagit (born 1966), Zohar (born 1971) and Keren (born 1974). Her daughter Dr. Sagit Alon-Arbel spoke about her in a radio interview on the day of her funeral. She was also survived by her sister Yehudit Marom, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Arbel described the fight against public corruption as a lifelong concern, calling corruption a malignant scourge that seriously harms society. As State Attorney she pressed the government and the Knesset for legal protection for state witnesses and opposed the use of so called moderate physical pressure on detainees held by the security services. She spoke repeatedly about the independence of the judiciary and public trust in the courts, including at the Knesset in 2016. In 2023 she signed, with almost all former attorneys general and state attorneys since 1975, a letter warning that the planned judicial overhaul threatened to destroy the justice system.

Arbel followed Dorit Beinisch as only the second woman to lead Israel's state prosecution. Her years as State Attorney established the prosecution as an independent force willing to bring charges against senior politicians, a role that continues to shape Israeli public life. Bar-Ilan University held a conference in her honour on her retirement, and the 2017 book Without a Robe, conversations with Supreme Court justices, includes a chapter of interviews with her.

In 2014 the Movement for Quality Government in Israel named her a Knight of Quality Government, and she spoke at its ceremony on behalf of the honourees. Bar-Ilan University marked her retirement from the bench with an academic conference on human rights, criminal law and the rule of law, and the law journal Mishpat Ve'Asakim published a tribute to her by retired justice Ayala Procaccia in 2014.

Arbel gave relatively few interviews while in office. After retiring she gave a farewell interview to Israel's Channel 1 in October 2014 and a long conversation with Yoram Yovel on Kan 11 in May 2018. She appeared at the Knesset in April 2016 to speak about judicial independence, at the Tel Aviv University Cyber Week on online incitement and hate speech, and at the 2019 Haifa Law Conference.

Few Israeli officials drew as much political heat. Her recommendations to indict sitting leaders, and her open dispute with Attorney General Mazuz over the Sharon case, made her a target for critics on the right, and Maariv ran a series of critical articles and investigations before her Supreme Court appointment. After her appointment to the district court in 1988 a press investigation alleged she had improperly received severance pay; the State Comptroller criticised the civil service commission but found she had acted in good faith. A 2002 change she made to prosecution guidelines, under which complainants in sex and violence cases whose accounts contained contradictions would generally not be prosecuted, was criticised by some as too lenient on false complaints. Her ruling in the Ben-Haim international custody case was sharply criticised by a New Jersey judge. The discrepancy over her master's degree also drew coverage.

Edna Arbel died on 1 July 2026 at the age of 82. The cause of death was not made public. The Judiciary of Israel, led by Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit, announced her death and the Ministry of Justice expressed its grief. President Isaac Herzog paid tribute on X. Her funeral was held on the evening of 2 July 2026 at the Sde Yehoshua cemetery in Haifa,.