Dov Levin

Dov Levin was born in Tel Aviv to Eliyahu and Dvora Levin,[1] His father was born in Russia and immigrated to Palestine with his family as a child, and his mother was born in Palestine to a family of rabbis and scholars, descendants of the Vilna Gaon and residents of Palestine since the mid-19th century.

Levin joined the Irgun while at the same time working at the British Mandate police headquarters.[2] He also went to law school, and continued studying law upon his return to Tel Aviv in 1945.[1] During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War he served in the Israel Defense Forces as an officer in the Alexandroni Brigade's 35th Battalion. In the reserves, he served in the Adjutant Corps.[1]

Levin had two sons, Eliyahu and Assaf, both of them lawyers.[1] He was also the uncle of poet and translator Amasai Levin.

In 1951 Dov Levin joined the Israel Bar Association. In September 1966, he became a judge.[2] He also served in that capacity in the Military Court of Appeals as part of his reserve service.[1] Levin presided as a judge in the Tel Aviv magistrate court until May 1972, when he was promoted to the district court. In 1979 he became vice-president of the court. In March 1981, he became a provisional Supreme Court justice and was given a permanent tenure on February 15, 1982.[1] In 1988, he presided over a special court that judged John Demjanjuk and in the same year was responsible for disqualifying the Kach party from running for the Knesset.[2]

Levin was head of the National Council for Prevention of Road Accidents and the Israel Football Association refereeing departments. After retiring from the bench in 1995, he became an arbitrator.[1]

In 1997, Levin received the Yakir Tel Aviv prize.[3]