New papers reveal lawsuit between Sara Netanyahu, brother
PM’s wife was sued for withdrawing NIS 60,000 from deceased father’s account to pay for headstone, death announcements
Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.
Sara Netanyahu’s brother sued her in 2012 for withdrawing and using money from her deceased father’s account without approval from other members of her family, documents cleared for publication Thursday showed.
According to the report released by the family court of Jerusalem, after her father, the Israeli poet and educator Shmuel Ben-Artzi, died in November 2011, Netanyahu, wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, took out nearly NIS 60,000 from her father’s Bank Hapoalim account.
However, her brother, Hagai Ben-Artzi, disputed the use of the money.
The report comes after weeks in which Sara Netanyahu has been pilloried in the press amid claims of excessive spending and an abuse lawsuit filed by a former caretaker of the Prime Minister’s Residence.
According to court documents, Netanyahu took out the NIS 60,000 “despite the fact that at the time they had yet to receive a probate order and that Ben-Artzi had even told the bank of his objection to the payment.”
The money was used to pay for a headstone and death announcements in Israeli newspapers, but Hagai Ben-Artzi, a Jewish philosophy professor, claimed that decision should have received his approval, as another recipient of the will.
According to the bank, which appeared with Netanyahu in the suit, only one beneficiary is needed to withdraw funds from a deceased persons account.
Sara Netanyahu and her brother ultimately decided on March 12, 2014 to settle the matter out of court.
