A Jerusalem Magistrates' Court judge committed suicide Tuesday, prompting accusations by his colleagues of an overwhelming workload forced upon judges.
Morris Ben-Attar, 54 of Maccabim, was found by paramedics at his home Tuesday afternoon. His associates said he had been called to a meeting with Courts Administration Director Moshe Gal two weeks ago, where he was told that he had to either hasten his work or resign due to tardy casework.
His colleagues said that Ben-Attar may indeed have been lagging behind, but that the issue could have been handled differently. "He took the fact that he may be fired very much to heart," one judge said.
"Judge Ben-Attar was a hardworking and thorough man for whom work and family were everything, and it was clear that he would take something like this seriously. They should have helped him or handled it in a nicer way," another judge told Ynet.
Ben-Attar immigrated to Israel at the age of 19 from Rhodesia. From 1980-1997 he worked as an attorney in the private sector and was then made head of the Jerusalem Execution Office. In 2002 he became a judge in the Jerusalem Magistrates' Court.