Micha Lindenstrauss, anti-corruption crusader and ex-comptroller, dies at 82
Born in Berlin in 1937, the former judge’s family fled Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II; ‘The issue of the Holocaust was very close to his heart,’ says wife Sima
Israel’s former state comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss, a respected ex-jurist who earned plaudits for his probes into government corruption, passed away Thursday at the age of 82.
His wife Sima told the Kan public broadcaster that it was fitting that Lindenstrauss passed away on Yom Hashoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. The former comptroller’s father was a Jewish Agency official, who prior to the war, held talks with Adolf Eichmann — later one of the masterminds of the extermination of Jews — in a desperate bid to convince the Nazis to allow the Jews of Germany and Austria to leave to pre-state Israel.
“The issue of the Holocaust was very close to his heart, and it’s deeply symbolic that he died on Yom Hashoah,” she said.
“Judge Lindenstrauss is a symbol of [the shift] from Holocaust to independence, and of the state of Israel’s unstinting commitment to the rule of law, and to effective and unblinkered self-criticism,” President Reuven Rivlin eulogized Thursday.
Born in Nazi-ruled Berlin in 1937, Lindenstrauss’s family fled to Mandatory Palestine two years later, on the eve of World War II.
He grew up in Haifa, a city where he was to live a large part of his life. He began his legal career as a military prosecutor in the West Bank after its capture by Israel in the 1967 war. He was appointed a civilian judge in the early 1970s and rose through the judicial ranks, from traffic court judge to the most senior judicial post in the Haifa district, as head of the district court from 1999 until his retirement in 2005.
Lindenstrauss was appointed comptroller by the Knesset in 2005, and soon became known for launching aggressive probes of suspected government corruption and leading multiple investigations into the affairs of public figures.
A report by Lindenstrauss was the first to find evidence of suspected wrongdoing by then-premier Ehud Olmert in what became known as the Talansky affair. He investigated the “Harpaz affair” at the height of the feud between then-defense minister Ehud Barak and IDF chief Gabi Ashkenazi, in which military officials close to Ashkenazi allegedly produced a fake document purporting to be from Barak’s confidantes detailing a plan to smear Ashkenazi, a con that was part of a larger battle on Ashkenazi’s part to prevent the appointment of Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant, who he despised, as his replacement as chief of staff. (Ashkenazi is now an MK with Blue and White, Galant an MK with Likud.) Ironically, after he investigated Ashkenazi’s side, it was Lindenstrauss himself who would go on to torpedo Galant’s appointment by uncovering alleged false reporting by the general of unapproved construction works around his home in the northern village of Amikam.
The state comptroller, who is also the state ombudsman, serves under the aegis of the Knesset and has authority to examine all agencies of government, even the most secretive. In part due to Lindenstrauss’s efforts, the agency has grown in recent years into a significant oversight body with hundreds of attorneys and accountants whose reports often lead to administrative and policy changes.
Lindenstrauss’s focus on corruption drew criticism from those who argued it marked an overstep of his authority, as the comptroller was not intended to serve as a criminal investigative unit. Critics also blamed him for repeated leaks to the media about corruption investigations during his term.
But others praised him for the investigations, and for his media savvy, arguing that under his leadership the comptroller’s office became an effective deterrent to official corruption. He was awarded the 2009 “Champion of Quality Government” award from the Movement for Quality Government and a 2012 award from the anti-corruption advocacy group Ometz. Shortly after concluding his seven-year term in 2012, he became chairman of the Israeli branch of Transparency International.
“During his term as comptroller, the office transformed into an institution that conducted its inquiries in real time, and the government at the time praised the work as life-saving,” Rivlin recalled Thursday.
“The state of Israel lost today one of its most faithful public servants,” MK Avi Nissenkorn (Blue and White), a former head of the Histadrut labor federation, said. “Judge Lindenstrauss fought nonstop against official corruption and for clean and fair government that serves its citizens. The legacy he leaves behind in his public work continues to reverberate and serves as a model.”
Lindenstrauss was also an author of several law books and fiction novels.
His funeral will take place on Friday at 12:30 p.m. at the Kfar Samir Cemetery in Haifa.
He is survived by his wife Sima and three daughters, one of them, Ilona Lindenstrauss-Arieli, herself a judge.
The Times of Israel Community.