Senior officials in the Justice Ministry and the attorney general’s office have decried a recently uncovered blacklist of “leftist” ministry employees, compiled several years ago by the far-right Noam party, which, after the government is sworn in, is set to lead a body tasked with safeguarding Israel’s Jewish identity.
The 2019 list, included in a document outlining the “takeover” of government ministries by “leftist” organizations, was unveiled last week by the Yedioth Ahronoth daily, alongside a list of LGBTQ media professionals in mainstream Israeli news outlets that has similarly drawn outrage.
Noam, a fringe, ultra-conservative and anti-LGBT party, entered the Knesset in 2021 and its sole lawmaker is party leader Avi Maoz. He ran on a combined slate with two other far-right parties in a merger orchestrated by incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The document listed senior Justice Ministry personnel who have participated in continuing education programs with liberal organizations — identified by Noam as “extreme left” — that support the integration of Arab citizens.
It named former state attorney Moshe Lador, former deputy state attorney Nurit Litman and former deputy attorney general Dina Zilber.
Organizations listed as collaborating with the Justice Ministry and giving lectures to its staff included the New Israel Fund, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), the Israel Democracy Institute, the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, and the Tali Education Fund, which runs Israel’s largest pluralistic Jewish studies program.
It also listed the Israel Women’s Network, the Center for International Migration and Integration (CIMI), the Israel Union for Environmental Defense, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, the workers’ rights group Kav LaOved and the Emile Zola Chair for Human Rights.
Deputy Attorney General Dina Zilber at a meeting of the Knesset’s Economic Affairs Committee on December 3, 2018. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
It also lists the Wexner Foundation’s leadership program and another leadership program called Maoz, as well as the Hebrew University’s Minerva Center for Human Rights and the Israeli Ethics Center.
The Haaretz daily on Tuesday quoted current and former senior judicial officials lambasting the Noam list, with an unnamed Justice Ministry lawyer saying: “The feeling is that all red lines are being crossed.”
Others branded the list “dangerous” and a “witch hunt,” with a senior ministry official saying the document “didn’t appear out of nowhere” and must be viewed alongside public campaigns against prosecutors in Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial, and planned legislation that aims to curb the judiciary.
Deputy Attorney General Raz Nizri in Jerusalem on February 6, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
Haaretz former deputy attorney general Raz Nizri as saying: “This is sad and dangerous. Political labeling of prosecutors and jurists harms the basis of the public legal advisory service, which is tasked with conducting itself in a broadminded fashion, free of political partisanship.”
Roi Sheindorf, who like Nizri served until recently as deputy attorney general, called the Noam document “nonsense,” saying the Justice Ministry employed staff members who are politically and otherwise diverse. “They deserve gratitude for their service, not the foolishness stemming from this document.”
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Far-right party’s list of ‘leftist’ Justice Ministry staff panned as ‘witch hunt’ - The Times of Israel
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