Nationality Israeli Spouse(s) Marta Organization University of Haifa | Occupation Professor of law Children 2 | |
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Education Doctor of Law, Hebrew University in Jerusalem | ||
Ricardo Ben-Oliel is a full professor of law (emeritus) at the University of Haifa Faculty of Law.
He was born in 1944 in Portugal, in the former colony Cape Verde, where his German descent mother found refuge during the Nazi period. From his father's side, he is a descendant of the rabbinical, aristocratic family Ben Atar.
Ben-Oliel is a graduate of the Classic University of Lisbon Faculty of Law (1966). During his first professional years he worked as a public prosecutor and later as a private lawyer.
In December 1973 he emigrated to Israel. After presenting his doctoral thesis on banking law in 1977, Prof. Ben-Oliel was invited to teach in the Hebrew University Faculty of Law, in Jerusalem.
As a lecturer and a senior research fellow of the Harry and Michael Sacher Institute for Legislative Research and Comparative Law in the same school, he became a pioneer in the research and teaching of banking law in Israel. He is the author of three books and dozens of articles published in Europe, the United States, Canada and Israel, including one seminal treatise on Banking Law cited by hundreds of court decisions including many Israeli Supreme Court ones.
In the preface of his treatise by the former President of the Supreme Court in Israel Professor Aharon Barak, the latter refers to him as "the leading authority of banking law in Israel".
During his career he taught various courses and seminars on banking law, bills and other means of payment, comparative law, private law, the law of obligations, the law of agency and its developments.
Ben-Oliel was a member of the committee that prepared a project of an Israeli Civil Code and a member of the founding team of the Faculty of Law at the University of Haifa.
He gave plentiful lectures and taught courses in various faculties of law, also to lawyers and judges in Israel, as well as in some of the most prestigious law faculties in Europe and the United States.
He is the author of two short story fiction books related to Jewish topics: Silence (Silêncio, in Portuguese) (2013) and The Locked Room where not even Death Entered and other Stories on Lisbon and Jerusalem (In Portuguese, O quarto trancado onde nem a morte entrava e outros contos de Lisboa e de Jerusalém) (2015).
Ricardo is married to Marta and is the father of Daniel and Uri, and has five grandchildren.