Netanyahu, senior ministers join hundreds at funeral of top lawyer

Senior government figures, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, joined hundreds of others who participated in the funeral Tuesday evening of Dr. Yaakov Weinroth, one of Israel’s most prominent lawyers in recent decades.

Weinroth died Monday at the age of 71 after a battle with cancer. During his career he represented Netanyahu and his family as well as ministers, presidents, judges, and pop stars.

Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, and former chief rabbi of Israel Meir Lau attended the eulogies at Weinroth’s home in Ramat Gan before the burial ceremony in the central coastal city of Netanya.

Weinroth, who defended Netanyahu against the corruption probes against him and who only recently quit the legal defense team for the premier’s wife, Sara, in a separate case, is survived by his wife, Giselle, and by six children.

“The public feels that a great man and a unique personality has gone,” Netanyahu said at the funeral. “It is doubtful there is another like him in our country. Yaakov is no longer with us but he spread a great light that will continue to illuminate our way. A light of love for Israel, of striving for truth.”

Weinroth was born in 1947 in the German city of Ansbach. His parents moved to Israel when he was two years old, settling in Netanya. While his family wasn’t ultra-Orthodox, he studied at Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak and Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem and was ordained as a rabbi.

But at 20 years old, as the Six Day War began, he changed tack, deciding to join the Israel Defense Forces and later to study law, completing his doctorate at Tel Aviv University in 1981.

Weinroth’s PhD thesis formed the basis of a Knesset law passed in the 1990s that introduced new ways for rabbinical courts in Israel to tackle divorce refusers, a central challenge in Jewish law.

He founded a law firm, Dr. J. Weinroth & Co., which over the years became one of Israel’s leading offices specializing in white-collar crimes.

Weinroth represented Netanyahu during his first term as prime minister in the 1990s, successfully defending him from corruption allegations. His firm presently still represents the prime minister in various graft cases, in two of which police have recommended an indictment for bribery.

He also represented Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor Liberman, the current defense minister, in several corruption cases over the years that did not end in convictions.

Liberman said Monday that Weinroth’s death was “a loss for the people of Israel and for me personally,” adding that he was “a uniquely special person. Clever, intellectual and with exceptional understanding of human beings.”

Among other public figures Weinroth represented were former president Ezer Weizman; former ministers Meir Sheetrit, Avraham Hirschson, Tsachi Hanegbi and Binyamin Ben Eliezer; popular singers Eyal Golan and Kobi Peretz; and several top police officials.

Despite repeatedly defending public servants accused of corruption, Weinroth condemned that phenomenon as well as crony capitalism in many media interviews.