Dina Zilber
Israeli lawyer; Deputy Attorney General for public and administrative law (2012–2020) who advised on the Ministry of Strategic Affairs' Kela Shlomo arrangement
| Dina Zilber
| |
|---|---|
| Image |  Zilber in 2023 (photo: David Shay, CC BY-SA 4.0) |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Occupation | Lawyer; Deputy Attorney General of Israel (2012–2020) |
| Education | Tel Aviv University (LLM) |
Dina Zilber is an Israeli lawyer who was Deputy Attorney General of Israel from 2012 to 2020, responsible for legal advice to the government and its ministries.[1] In that role she wrote the 2017 legal opinion that cleared the Ministry of Strategic Affairs' engagement with the public-benefit company Kela Shlomo, while warning that ministerial powers could "leak" to it without adequate control.[2]
Career
Before becoming Deputy Attorney General, Zilber spent 16 years as a senior attorney in the High Court of Justice Department of the State Attorney's Office, where she represented the state in more than 1,600 petitions. She is the author of Bureaucracy as Politics (2006) and In the Name of the Law: The Attorney General and the Affairs that Shook the State (2012).[1] A selection committee chaired by Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein chose her for the deputy post in August 2012, replacing Mike Blass.[3] The Ministry of Justice held a farewell ceremony for her in December 2020.[4]
| Name | Title | Dates |
|---|---|---|
| Dina Zilber | Senior attorney, High Court of Justice Department, State Attorney's Office | c. 1996–2012 |
| Dina Zilber | Deputy Attorney General (public and administrative law) | 2012 – December 2020 |
Kela Shlomo and FARA
The Seventh Eye reported in May 2018 that Zilber's opinion approving the engagement with Kela Shlomo raised the concern that "powers vested in the ministry regarding the setting of government policy and the distribution of the government budget would leak to the dedicated body [Kela Shlomo] without adequate control by the ministry". She wrote that donors were expected to seek influence over the project's management and goals, and that "to the extent that the programme is operated directly by the ministry, it will naturally not be possible to allow significant intervention by these parties" (translated from Hebrew).[2]
According to leaked Israeli Ministry of Justice documents published by Distributed Denial of Secrets, which have not been independently verified, Liat Glazer of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs sent Zilber a memo on 18 July 2018 headed "PBC and FARA". It warned of "a trend to turn the FARA issue from a Russia case into a case against Israel" and proposed "informal coordination mechanisms (such as meetings and oral updates)" with a planned US entity (translated from Hebrew).[5][6] The same documents include a letter summarising a meeting on 6 August 2018 between the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, then run by director general Sima Vaknin-Gil, and the Treasury. In it the Ministry of Justice said the proposed structure raised a concern of "leakage of ministerial powers and public budget on a significant scale without sufficient government control", and that it "could look like an attempt to circumvent American law" (translated from Hebrew).[7] See Foreign Agents Registration Act and Concert - Together for Israel.
See also
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Stanford University, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Israel Fellows FSI Stanford, accessed 21 October 2026. Biography of Dina Zilber; Stanford-side.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Seventh Eye, משרד ההסברה של ארדן מסרב לחשוף זהות מיליארדרים זרים שיקבלו סמכויות תוכן (Erdan's hasbara ministry refuses to reveal the identity of foreign billionaires who will receive content powers) The Seventh Eye, 23 May 2018 (Hebrew; critical), read via the Internet Archive, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Uzi Baruch, עו"ד דינה זילבר – המשנה ליועמ"ש במקום בלאס (Adv. Dina Zilber – Deputy Attorney General in place of Blass) Arutz Sheva, 30 August 2012 (Hebrew), accessed 21 October 2026. Journalistic.
- ↑ דינה זילבר נפרדה ממשרד המשפטים: "אל תשכחו שאתם יפים וצודקים" (Dina Zilber says farewell to the Ministry of Justice) Ynet, 22 December 2020 (Hebrew), accessed 21 October 2026. Journalistic.
- ↑ Distributed Denial of Secrets, Israel Ministry of Justice ddosecrets.org, 25 July 2024, accessed 21 October 2026. DDoSecrets lists the dataset in its "Cyberwar" category, warning of "an increased chance of malware, ulterior motives and altered or implanted data".
- ↑ Israel Ministry of Justice leak (Distributed Denial of Secrets), memo from Liat Glazer to Deputy Attorney General Dina Zilber, "PBC and FARA", 18 July 2018 (Hebrew), Library of Leaks entity 10062136 Library of Leaks, accessed 21 October 2026. Leaked document; authenticity not independently verified.
- ↑ Israel Ministry of Justice leak (Distributed Denial of Secrets), letter summarising the 6 August 2018 meeting on the PBC and FARA, 16 September 2018 (Hebrew), Library of Leaks entity 9602525 Library of Leaks, accessed 21 October 2026. Leaked document; authenticity not independently verified.