One day in early 1961, Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court Yitzhak Olshan informed fellow justice Moshe Landau that he (Landau) was to be moved down to the Jerusalem District Court. When Landau voiced his surprise, Olshan—who was not known for his sense of humor—added solemnly: “Of course, with your consent.” In this way, Landau learned of his appointment as the presiding judge in Israel's historic trial of Adolf Eichmann,2 or “Criminal Case 40/61: The Attorney General v. Adolf Eichmann.”3
Moshe Landau was forty-nine years old at the time. One of nine Israeli Supreme Court justices, he was respected, but neither senior nor patently distinguished. Ahead of him in these terms one could count the learned Shimon Agranat, the brilliant Yoel Zussman, or Moshe Zilberg, who was widely considered a genius. The judicial activist Zvi Berenson was Landau's equal in seniority and renown, and another leading light, Haim Cohen, had been appointed to the Supreme Court in 1960.
Landau had to move his office—albeit temporarily—from the Supreme Court to the District Court, which he had left behind eight years earlier. His move took him from the old, uncomfortable, gloomy, and almost hidden Supreme Court building in the “Russian Compound” at the center of Jerusalem to the renovated Beit Ha'am (“the People's Home”) building in narrow and noisy Bezalel Street in downtown Jerusalem—a characterless building designated as a major cultural center for the residents of the capital.4 A team of builders was hastening to complete the renovation so as to accommodate the trial of Adolf Eichmann. After many years of working diligently, but without glory, Landau became instantly famous both in Israel and in the world at large.
