Association for Civil Rights in Israel

Founded in 1972, ACRI describes itself as an independent, non-partisan organization committed to promoting and defending human rights and civil liberties without regard to religion, nationality, gender, ethnicity, political affiliation, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic background.[1] Its stated scope extends to people living both inside Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria.[1] The National Library of Israel, which holds the organization's archive — including board-meeting protocols and public statements — describes its core work as the protection and promotion of human rights in areas where those rights are violated by or on behalf of Israeli authorities.[5]

The Israeli government's Core Document recognizes ACRI as monitoring human rights and civil liberties within Israel, producing educational materials in Hebrew and Arabic, conducting public outreach and education, and engaging in international human-rights advocacy.[6] A government directory lists ACRI's areas of concern as including freedom of information, the right to education, workers' rights, new-immigrant rights, and discrimination based on age and gender.[7] An American Jewish Committee anniversary booklet calls ACRI "Israel's most respected human rights organization" and says that AJC's Jacob Blaustein Institute helped launch it.[8]

ACRI pursues change through four main channels: advocacy, legal action, education, and public engagement.[1] Its legal department takes cases with the potential to set precedents and produce broad policy change, arguing dozens of cases each year before the Supreme Court while also seeking redress in district and labor courts, government ministries, and Knesset committees.[1] The organization's stated strategic focus areas include social, economic, and political rights; the Arab minority; the Occupied Palestinian Territories; and migrants and refugees.[1]

ACRI was established in 1972; the Jewish Women's Archive describes it as Israel's oldest and largest human-rights organization.[2][1] Professor Ruth Gavison is identified as its founder; she served as chair during several non-consecutive periods and as the organization's president from 1996 to 1999.[9] Gavison remained central to shaping ACRI's character and direction from the early 1980s and significantly influenced both its work and human-rights discourse in Israel more broadly.[10] Quoted by Ynet, Gavison described ACRI's main achievement as having built a professional, prestigious, and stable organization with a comprehensive view of human rights.[10]

ACRI opened its first office in the early 1980s.[11] Legal adviser Dan Yakir noted in a 2011 interview that the organization initially concentrated on classic civil and political rights, and that over the preceding 15 years it had expanded its work to encompass social rights, including efforts to promote a Basic Law on social rights.[11] The broader Israeli human-rights NGO network, of which ACRI is a part, developed principally amid resistance to government and IDF practices during the first intifada of 1987–89.[12]

Attorney Sharon Abraham-Weiss became ACRI's executive director in May 2014.[13] Before that appointment she had spent seven years as an ACRI staff attorney, founded and headed a Corporate Social Responsibility Clinic at the Academic Center of Law and Business, and served as the Tel Aviv and Central Israel Region Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioner.[13] A 2022 interview marking the organization's 50th anniversary described it as focused on principled struggles across the full range of rights; legal department director Oded Feller said ACRI had no party-political identification, while also describing rights work as political in a broad, nonpartisan sense.[14]

ACRI's legal department is the organization's most prominent instrument of change. It argues dozens of cases annually before the Supreme Court — formally the High Court of Justice (HCJ) when exercising that jurisdiction — as well as in district and labor courts, and has produced a body of precedent-setting rulings across a wide range of rights.[1]

One of the earliest landmark cases involved theatrical censorship. In 1986, ACRI, playwright Yitzhak Laor, and the Israeli Playwrights Association petitioned the High Court after the Film and Theater Censorship Board barred Laor's play "Ephraim Returns to the Army," which the board said portrayed military rule in the West Bank in a distorted way that might encourage negative attitudes toward the state and the IDF.[15] The court overturned the decision, and the board's authority to censor plays was abolished later that decade.[15][3] ACRI's legal-landmarks summary confirms that the Supreme Court's 1986 judgment accepted its petition and resulted in the abolition of theatrical censorship.[3]

A pivotal ruling came in 1999, when the Supreme Court decided HCJ 4054/95, in which ACRI asked the court to direct the General Security Service (GSS) to stop shaking suspects during interrogations.[4] The court unanimously held that shaking was a violent and prohibited method that infringed a suspect's bodily integrity and dignity, and that the GSS had no authority to use it, the "Shabach" position, a "frog crouch," or sleep deprivation beyond what was inherently required by interrogation.[4] It further held that the criminal-law necessity defense could not itself provide advance authority for such practices, though it could potentially be considered after the event in a particular case.[4]

In the Kaadan case, ACRI represented an Arab family whose 1995 request to settle in the Jewish cooperative community of Katzir had been rejected on ethnic grounds.[16] The Supreme Court ruled that state land could not be allocated for establishing Katzir on a basis that discriminated between Jews and non-Jews — the first time courts articulated the Arab community's equal right to state-allocated land.[3] When the family's efforts to obtain a plot continued to be frustrated after the ruling, ACRI and the family alleged that the Israel Land Administration, the Jewish Agency, and the Katzir cooperative had obstructed its implementation.[16] After nine years of struggle, the Israel Land Administration agreed, the day before a scheduled hearing on the family's second petition, to allow the family to buy a plot and build a home in Katzir at the price they would have paid in 1995.[16]

ACRI's LGBTQ litigation has also produced significant precedents. In 1996 it successfully appealed the Defense Ministry's refusal to grant a deceased military officer's same-sex partner spousal benefits.[3] A 2000 case recognized a child's adoption by his biological mother's female partner, and a 2006 ruling required the Population Registry to register same-sex couples' marriages conducted outside Israel.[3] Separately, in 1997 ACRI joined two organizations in challenging Education Minister Zevulun Hammer's decision to delay a planned Educational Television program about homosexual teenagers.[17] The High Court ordered Hammer to permit the program to air; Justice Ya'akov Kedmi wrote that education was a broad concept and that the program qualified as educational.[17]

Prison conditions have been another sustained focus. A 2007 petition filed jointly with Physicians for Human Rights–Israel led the High Court to prohibit prisoners from sleeping on the floor and to require the state to provide every prisoner with a bed beginning July 1, 2007.[3] Following a petition by ACRI and the Academic Center for Law and Business in Ramat Gan, the Supreme Court ruled in June 2017 that prisons must provide each prisoner at least 48 square feet of living space including toilet and shower, or 43 square feet excluding them.[18] ACRI figures cited in the proceedings showed that prisoners were then allocated an average of 33 square feet, and approximately 40 percent were held in less than 32 square feet per person.[18] The court later extended the compliance deadline to May 2020 while requiring at least 32 square feet by April 2019.[18]

Migrant workers' rights have produced additional rulings. In 2006, the Supreme Court ordered cancellation of the "binding arrangement" that required migrant workers to remain with one employer or risk losing their work visas, giving the state six months to prepare an alternative.[3] In 2011, the High Court annulled a regulation under which a legally residing migrant worker who became pregnant or gave birth would lose her permit, have to leave Israel, and could return only without her newborn child.[3]

In 2018, ACRI, Israel Gay Youth, and the Aguda appealed to the Supreme Court over restrictions proposed for the first LGBTQ Pride march in Kfar Saba, including a two-meter fence along the route estimated to cost about 24,000 shekels.[19] Following the appeal, police canceled those restrictions, and the march took place on June 1.[19] That same year, a 2016 ACRI petition seeking Arabic-language schooling for Arab students in Nazareth Illit led to the formation of a municipal assessment team; some 2,600 Arab students in the city had no option for education in Arabic and had been attending schools in Arab-majority Nazareth and nearby villages.[19]

In December 2025, the Supreme Court struck down two clauses of police regulations in a case in which ACRI and other groups had been primary petitioners since 2019, ruling that officers needed a reasonable foundation for suspicion that a person had committed or was about to commit a crime before demanding identification documents.[20] ACRI welcomed the decision.[20]

A recurring thread in ACRI's litigation concerns the legal limits of security and intelligence agencies' powers. In 2009, ACRI petitioned the Supreme Court over the undefined term "subversion" in the 2002 Israel Security Agency (ISA) Law, arguing that the absence of a definition "leaves too much open to interpretation" and that the ISA and Justice Ministry should be required to define it.[21]

In 2017, ACRI petitioned against the ISA's practice of summoning political activists for warning meetings.[21] The Supreme Court accepted that informal conversations could be legitimate in certain circumstances, but placed limits on the practice: the concern had to involve illegal activity that might compromise national security, and the person summoned had to be told the conversation was voluntary and that they were not obliged to attend.[21] ACRI subsequently wrote to the State Attorney's Office alleging that the ISA had violated the ruling in three incidents at Ben Gurion Airport in June and July 2018, when it detained civil-society employees returning from abroad for questioning.[19]

In airport security screening, the Supreme Court stated in HCJ 4797/07, Association for Civil Rights in Israel v. The Airports Authority, that "an entire population cannot be tagged as a security risk" — a ruling cited in wider debates over the balance between security requirements and democratic rights.[21]

ACRI's scrutiny of the Shin Bet extended further in subsequent years. Together with Adalah, it challenged in 2020 the Shin Bet's COVID-19 mobile-phone tracking program; on November 17 of that year, the Supreme Court directed the government to explain why the tracking should be used when patients did not cooperate with epidemiological investigations and why it was not promoting an alternative method as required by law.[22] The petition remained pending at the year's end.[22]

In 2022, ACRI filed a petition seeking cancellation or amendment of a law clause that allowed searches and processing of personal information — potentially including location data and information about sexual orientation, protest participation, or political views — without supervision.[23] A companion petition demanded revocation of what ACRI described as an unregulated expansion of Shin Bet functions and powers over the preceding 20 years; both matters were still pending at the end of 2023.[23]

Also in 2023, ACRI and Tel Aviv University's Privacy Clinic petitioned the Supreme Court over police and Shin Bet use of spyware such as NSO's Pegasus, arguing that authorization to infringe rights such as privacy and freedom of expression must be explicit and clear in statute.[24] According to the petition as reported by Calcalist Tech, police use of such spyware had been frozen at the end of January 2022 after a Calcalist investigation exposed unregulated use. The report described the Merari commission as identifying police overreach and shortcomings in reporting, limits, and supervision.[24]

Alongside its courtroom work, ACRI maintains an active presence in Israel's legislative process. Its Knesset policy work involves monitoring and advising on proposed bills, seeking to reduce human-rights infringements in legislation and government policies, and initiating or supporting legislation to protect civil liberties.[1] The organization prepares position papers, participates in Knesset committee discussions and public forums, and conducts public outreach and rights education.[1]

In 2005, ACRI joined two other organizations in petitions challenging cuts to income supplements enacted through the 2003 Economic Arrangements Law, arguing that the reduced allowances fell below the minimum needed for a decent life and that the cuts affected 100,000 families by an average of NIS 670 a month, on top of an earlier four-percent reduction.[25] The High Court dismissed the petitions, saying it could not determine whether people in Israel were living in severe want without an adequate factual basis.[25]

During the 2011 tent protests, ACRI staff and volunteers distributed a demonstrators' rights guide, advised on freedom of expression, represented protesters in disputes with municipalities and in court, and helped secure the release of detained protesters.[11] Legal adviser Yakir described the association's work as being for people whose rights had been harmed, regardless of their political identity.[11] ACRI also wrote to the attorney general calling for an end to police practices at demonstrations that it said restricted peaceful assembly, including confining marchers to small areas, checking and registering protesters' identification, filming them on private phones, and using undercover officers to make arrests.[22]

ACRI's education department trains thousands of educators across Israel each year and produces curricula in Hebrew and Arabic.[26] Its outreach spans teachers in both Jewish and Arab school systems, college and university students, security-force personnel, and social and community workers.[26] The organization also organizes conferences and lectures on human-rights education.[26]

One concrete output is the guide "A Life Lesson – Educating Against Racism from Preschool to High School," produced with teachers and academics in the education division.[27] The guide combines theoretical material with practical classroom approaches, including ways to address racist behavior at different ages and to incorporate anti-racism education into subjects such as mathematics, English, science, photography, and Arabic.[27] At the time of reporting, the Education Ministry was reviewing whether the guide's lessons could be incorporated into the national curriculum.[27]

ACRI's annual report, as described in a 2007 account, tracked trends such as racism and discrimination, and the organization planned associated public events including a special Knesset debate, an interactive play in Russian, and an open-stage event for International Human Rights Day.[28] The organization's archive, held by the National Library of Israel, includes board-meeting protocols and public statements documenting its institutional history.[5]

ACRI's significance is reflected in precedent-setting litigation on theatrical censorship and General Security Service interrogation methods.[4][3] Its Kaadan petition also produced a landmark ruling concerning equality in the allocation of state land.[3]

ACRI operates within a broader network of Israeli human-rights organizations that developed principally during the first intifada of 1987–89 and share some funding sources and the aim of strengthening Israeli democracy and the rule of law, while lacking permanent alliances.[12] A 2006 account described ACRI as a source of legal expertise for other organizations, including B'Tselem and HaMoked, and as a participant in joint legal petitions; the groups are characterized as having distinct areas of specialization and cooperating on particular matters rather than as permanent partners.[12]

The network's high point of cooperation is identified as the preparation for the Supreme Court's 1999 decision prohibiting torture in all its forms, with organizations contributing in different ways — monitoring sites, taking individual testimonies, documenting policies, measuring health effects, and making public and legal arguments.[12] ACRI also filed joint petitions with Adalah and Al Mezan in 2023, challenging the denial of administrative release for security prisoners on grounds of discrimination and inconsistency with the law's aim of easing overcrowding.[23] In the field of education, ACRI collaborated with Haifa University and another organization in a 2020 petition against Petah Tikva municipality over the placement of Eritrean children in schools and kindergartens; the petition resulted in 140 children being placed in integrated kindergartens, and the petitioners reached an agreement with the municipality and Education Ministry for future integrated registration.[22]

A Sapir Journal article recounts strategic meetings between the educational leadership of the Haredi-Mizrahi Shas Party and the secular-liberal leadership of ACRI, aimed at finding ways for the groups to relate to each other. That account attributes the meetings' constructive dynamic to ACRI's humility and generosity of spirit.[29]

ACRI's work — particularly its litigation involving security agencies, Palestinian rights, and demonstrations — has made it a contested institution in Israeli public discourse. The organization describes itself as nonpartisan; its legal department director stated in 2022 that it had no party-political identification.[14] Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit characterized ACRI in 2017 as an established civil-society organization that had worked for decades to protect human rights and contributed significantly to their protection in Israel, and attorney general letters since 2017 have attested to its legitimacy as an established civil-society body.[22][30] Mandelblit emphasized that the conference in question concerned the important subject of workers' rights.[30]

Not everyone has accepted this characterization. In March 2020, Justice Minister Amir Ohana barred the coordinator of the Justice Ministry's National Anti-Racism Unit from participating in an ACRI conference, arguing that the organization was political and controversial and financed legal fees to defend alleged terrorists.[22] The Times of Israel reported that many in Israeli society viewed ACRI as staunchly left-wing, and described public criticism of its decision to appeal a ruling revoking the Israeli citizenship of a man convicted of a car-ramming and stabbing attack; ACRI and another organization argued that revocation could leave him stateless and contravene international law.[31]

ACRI's petitions involving the West Bank, including the 2007 challenge to a 28-mile concrete barrier near Hebron that had isolated 21 Palestinian villages and restricted 2,000 farmers' access to 24 rural roads, and the 2009 petition challenging a military order barring Palestinian movement on Route 443, have been particularly contentious because they directly engage with security and occupation policies.[32][3] ACRI's constitutional petition HCJ 4762/20 against the Knesset was rejected at the threshold because proceedings had not first been exhausted before the competent authorities, illustrating the court's procedural limits on its challenges to legislation.[33] These debates reflect genuine disagreements about the proper scope of civil-society advocacy in a democracy facing security challenges, and about the appropriate balance between collective security and individual rights — questions that remain live in Israeli public discourse.