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Halfway through my most recent trip to Israel, I received a call from our Israeli attorney: Professor Qimron had obtained a court order preventing me from leaving the country, he said. I was now a prisoner in Israel. The order was obtained without any notification of the application being given to our attorney. He was told only after the order had been entered and the border police had been notified to prevent my escape.
I had come to Israel to visit archaeological sites, to talk with archaeologists, to attend the 11th World Congress of Jewish Studies and to confer with curators at the Israel Museum and the Israel Antiquities Authority regarding the exhibit we are bringing to Washington in connection with the Annual Meeting. But with that telephone call from our attorney, my first concern had to be the legal proceeding.
After providing our attorneys with the facts of my visit and signing an appropriate affidavit, I returned to the matters that had brought me to Israel.
The earliest date our attorneys could arrange for a hearing before the magistrate was on the day I was to leave. The hearing was set for 9 a.m. My departure was scheduled for that night, an hour after midnight. The hearing lasted an hour, with both attorneys presenting legal arguments. Qimron’s lawyer argued that I must be kept in the country because if I failed to pay that judgment that Qimron had obtained, they could then put me in jail. Israel still has limited imprisonment for debt.
At the end of the hearing, the magistrate said she would try to decide that day but that she had a full day of hearings. The wait began. Hourly we called the court, but no decision. At four in the afternoon, it became clear that there would be no decision that day. I could not leave as planned. Justice delayed is justice denied, I thought. How could Qimron fight with such viciousness? What was to be gained by this kind of harassing behavior, especially since the American attorneys for both sides were negotiating the details of a settlement? Moreover, a memorial service for my recently deceased mother-in-law was scheduled for three days after I had planned to get back.
The next morning, we started calling the court again. This time the office of the clerk of the court did not answer. We had to go to the clerk’s office and camp out.
At noon, the decision came down. I was released. The magistrate held that there no ground for holding me in the country. Quoting an Israeli Supreme Court opinion, she stated: “A person is not to be detained so that plaintiff can wage a war of exhaustion and cause defendant, in the end, out of desperation to redeem himself from bondage.’
I rushed to pack my bags and make a new airplane reservation. I thought about the right to travel guaranteed by the United States constitution. It was good to be free to go. What will Qimron think of next, I wondered.—H.S.
Halfway through my most recent trip to Israel, I received a call from our Israeli attorney: Professor Qimron had obtained a court order preventing me from leaving the country, he said. I was now a prisoner in Israel. The order was obtained without any notification of the application being given to our attorney. He was told only after the order had been entered and the border police had been notified to prevent my escape. I had come to Israel to visit archaeological sites, to talk with archaeologists, to attend the 11th World Congress of Jewish Studies and to confer […]