Melech Westreich

Biography

Elimelech (Melech) Westreich is professor of Law in the Faculty of Law of the Tel Aviv University and has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago Law School (spring 2001, Autumn 2005, Autumn 2008). He was ordained as a rabbi by the Rabbis of Kerem Be’Yavneh Yeshiva and served as a Rabbi of a brigade in the I.D.F. He obtained the LL.B. from Bar Ilan University, the LL.M. (Graduated cum laude) from Tel Aviv University, and the Dr.Jur from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, winning the Moshe Silberg Prize for his doctoral thesis. He was awarded the Prize for Jewish Scholarship presented by Israel’s Minister of Education and Culture. He specializes in Jewish family law and Jewish commercial law. He is author of Transitions in the Legal Status of the Wife in Jewish Law - A Journey Among Traditions, Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 5762 (2002). He was the editor of Tel Aviv University Law Review (1998-1999). He has written many articles on Jewish family law focusing on the encounter between Ashkenazim and Sephardim and the challenges of the modern era. His recent articles are: “Empowering the Jewish Widow by the Rabbis of Morocco in the Twentieth Century” (accepted) and “Elements of Negotiability in Jewish Law in Medieval Christian Spain", Theoretical Inquiries in Law Vol. 11 [2010], 410-438.

Research Interest

Jewish Family Law, Jewish Commercial Law, Jewish Law and Modern Medicine and Science, Jewish Law in the Sephardic and Eastern Traditions