A quarter of the 20 men among 28 nominees to the Supreme Court bench, published Sunday by the Justice Ministry, are graduates of the Har-Etzion yeshiva. They are Professor Aviad Hacohen, Professor Gideon Sapir and Professor Shahar Lifshitz, as well as Judges Ram Winograd and David Mintz.
Rabbi Amnon Bazak responded by writing, "It was hard not to be moved from the list of candidates for judges to the Supreme Court." He called them lovers of Torah, whose awe/fear [of Heaven] precedes their wisdom, who deal faithfully with the needs of public faith, as well as learning and the dissemination of Torah." He called their nomination "an expression of the path of yeshiva heads Rabbi Amital and Rabbi Lichtenstein, envisioned the growth of graduates: scholars who will affect Israeli society, together with the establishment of a layer of rabbis and educators."