JERUSALEM — Aharon Barak, the bookish president of Israel's Supreme Court, entered the Jerusalem Bar Assn. at a brisk clip with his jurist wife by his side and a secret service agent covering his back. Wearing a baggy suit and open shirt collar to the evening reception, the unassuming chief justice made his way across the room to a quiet corner. The agent and two uniformed police officers--protecting him against recent threats on his life--followed closely behind.
To his many admirers, Barak, 60, is Israel's version of the late American jurist Earl Warren--a brilliant, activist chief justice who is using the power of the high court to protect minority rights and bring about a revolution in Israeli law.
They call Barak a genius, the authority in half a dozen legal fields. He is prolific and persuasive in his writings, and it is said that lawyers now often cite him when they argue before him.
The bodyguards, however, are there because of his most ardent detractors.
Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish press has launched a vitriolic campaign against Barak for his refusal to close a Jerusalem thoroughfare on the Sabbath and, more broadly, for expanding the secular court's authority into ever greater areas of public life. His rulings, they say, threaten the Jewish character of the state.
Religious newspapers have branded the judge an "authentic enemy of Judaism" and "a dictator."
In a recent article titled "The Target: Barak," the ultra-Orthodox newspaper Hashavua wrote that the chief justice "is the driving force behind a sophisticated campaign against Jewish life in Israel."
The article argued that "we must not waste our shells. The battle must be focused on this man who is very dangerous to democracy and liberties."
These are frightening words to a country still recovering from the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin last November by a religious law student who viewed the late prime minister as a traitor to Jews.
When Barak subsequently received telephone threats--including one that he would "rot next to Rabin's grave"--the government assigned bodyguards and stationed police around the apartment building where he lives.
This has calmed some fears but not the furor.
Like the United States, Israel expects its laws to be obeyed and its Supreme Court to be honored.
Average Israelis protest that a judge with bodyguards is something out of Italy or Colombia, not their Jewish state. The disturbing image suggests, once again, that the country may not be as enlightened as believed before Rabin's assassination.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu--along with the president, parliament, legal establishment and top religious leaders--rushed to condemn the violent tone of the assault against Barak and the high court.
"We are a country based on law, and the Supreme Court is a cornerstone of the legislative authority of the state," Netanyahu said. "We will not permit attacks on this important and central institution."
Israel has no constitution. In his 18 years on the bench, Barak has interpreted the country's few Basic Laws broadly, expanding the rights of individuals to appeal to the Supreme Court, as well as the kinds of cases the court will hear.
He has overruled government actions and set the stage for judicial review of laws, ensuring the court's role as the nation's ultimate legal arbiter.
The religious are not the only ones uncomfortable with such a strong court. Shortly after his condemnation of the attacks, Netanyahu told the Israeli newspaper Maariv that he was consulting prominent jurists, intellectuals and rabbis with an eye toward legislating limits on the Supreme Court's power.
This drew a flood of criticism from legal experts and political opponents who accused the prime minister of caving in to pressure from ultra-Orthodox members of his rightist coalition government and of wishing to limit judicial oversight of his administration.
About 300 lawyers took to the streets in Jerusalem to protest incitement against the high court, while newspapers and political leaders argued that the government and parliament must never interfere with the court.
"The Supreme Court is the fortress of the individual in his fight against the government," said an editorial in the daily newspaper Haaretz. Judicial oversight, it said, "is one of the pillars of democracy."
Netanyahu issued a clarification that he was only examining the issue, not drafting a law. But the debate rages on.
In Israel, only a simple majority in parliament would be necessary to pass a law limiting the Supreme Court's rule.
Opponents of such a move note that Netanyahu's conservative coalition in the 120-seat Knesset includes 25 religious members who would be more than happy to do so.
Barak has remained silent in the eye of the legal tornado, and he asked his fellow judges to refrain from comment as well.
He is said to believe that the whirl of controversy and threats will soon pass.
