Central Elections Committee to be Chaired by US-Born Judge

Photo Credit: Yonatan Sindel / Flash 90

The new head of Israel’s Central Elections Committee will be an immigrant from the United States, it was announced Sunday evening.

Supreme Court Judge Neal Hendel has been chosen to succeed Supreme Court Judge Hanan Melczer as chairman of the Committee, the Supreme Court announced.

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Hendel attended the Yeshiva of Flatbush in Brooklyn as a youth, and followed up at New York University. Hendel made Aliyah to Israel in 1983, settling in the Negev capital of Be’er Sheva. That same year he started working in the Southern District Prosecutor’s Office. Five years later, he became a judge on the Be’er Sheva Magistrate’s Court, where he remained until 1997, when he became a judge on the Be’er Sheva District Court. He eventually became Vice President there, and in 2009, he was appointed to serve on Israel’s Supreme Court. Hendel is married to Marcie Hendel, a psychologist, and the couple has five sons.

The new chairman takes on his new role at a particularly turbulent time in Israeli politics, as the nation prepares to once again head to the polls for an unprecedented third round of general elections sometime in March 2020.