Yesh Din’s Public Council functions as an advisory board, overseeing Yesh Din activities and lending its expertise and guidance on all matters related to strategic organizational decisions, legal issues or correspondence with the press, the public or the upper echelons of the Israeli Defence establishment.

The Public Council is comprised of well-known public figures, former holders of public office and distinguished members of civil society.

Adv. Abeer Baker | legal advisor to human rights organizations in the OPT and Palestinian women’s organizations in Israel. Ran the prisoners’ rights clinic at University of Haifa. Recipient of the Israel Public Defense Outstanding Defense Counsel Award (2016).

Hanna Barag | Human rights activist. Recipient of the Leibowitz Prize for 2017.

Dan Bavly | Author, journalist, former Executive Partner of Bavly Millner & Co. Former chairman of the Jewish-Arab Center in the University of Haifa.

Prof. Naomi Chazan | Professor (emerita) of Political Science at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Dean of the School of Government and Society at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yafo. Served as a Knesset member for Meretz and president of the New Israel Fund.

Ruth Cheshin | Co-founder and President Emeritus of the Jerusalem Foundation, Chairman of Mishkenot Sha’ananim.

Akiva Eldar | Journalist, author and publicist. Former member of the Haaretz editorial board and current political commentator for Al-Monitor.

Prof. Rachel Elior | John and Golda Cohen Professor of Jewish Philosophy Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Department of Jewish Thought and senior research fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute; serves on the international board of the New Israel Fund, the public council of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism and is a founding member of the Council for Free Judaism and the Tag-Meir forum.

Dani Karavan | Sculptor, Israel Prize laureate 1977, named by UNESCO as an Artist for Peace, and winner of Japan’s “Praemium Imperiale”.

Adv. Yehudit Karp | Lawyer, former Deputy Attorney General of Israel and Head of the Department of Criminal and Public Law Legislation at the Ministry of Justice. Former vice president and member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Paul Kedar, Colonel (Ret.) | Former Israeli consul general in New York, head of the Ministry of Defense delegation to Europe and IDF attaché to Turkey. In 2010 Kedar and his wife Ruthie were honored with the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) for their work with Yesh Din.

Dr. Roy Peled (PhD) | lecturer at the Haim Striks School of Law at the College of Management Academic Studies; formerly executive director of the Movement for Freedom of Information; international secretary of the Hashomer Hatzair movement.

Prof. Uzy Smilansky | Emeritus Professor of Physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Visiting Professor at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Joshua Sobol | Israeli playwright, writer, and director at theatres in Israel and abroad.

Prof. Zeev Sternhell (of blessed memory) | Israeli historian and one of the world’s leading experts on Fascism. Sternhell headed the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and writes for the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz. In 2008, Sternhell was awarded the Israel Prize for Political Science.

Yair Rotlevy | Industrialist. Board member of several public companies and organizations for social change