Judge Benny Sagi, 54, president of the Be’er Sheva District Court, was killed Sunday evening in a motorcycle crash on Highway 6 in the Lachish region.
Appointed in April after nearly a year as acting president, Sagi was the youngest district court head in Israel. Known in Be’er Sheva as “the biker president,” he was often seen arriving at court hearings on his bike.
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Benny Sagi, president of the Be'er Sheva District Court, and his motorcycle after the accident
(Photo: United Hatzalah, Rafi Kotz)
Sagi was widely respected within the legal system, both by attorneys and by litigants who appeared before him. He was highly regarded for his productivity and the quality of his work, his ability to broker settlements in complex criminal and civil cases, and his interpersonal skills. He was also seen as a future Supreme Court candidate.
“With great sorrow and deep shock, we announce the passing of the president of the Be'er Sheva District Court, Judge Benny Sagi, who was killed this evening in a traffic accident,” the Judicial Authority said in a statement. “President Sagi was a talented and promising judge, a leader and beloved by all who knew him. He achieved professional distinction at a young age, and his death is a great loss to the judiciary, in which he served as a judge for some 20 years. Alongside this, he was a devoted family man, a husband and father, an avid sports fan, and a dear and cherished friend to his colleagues and those around him.”
The Judicial Authority noted that, over the past year and a half, Sagi served as president of the Be'er Sheva District Court, after arriving from the Tel Aviv District Court, “a role he fulfilled with great professionalism, demonstrating outstanding professional and personal leadership skills.”
President Isaac Herzog also paid tribute, saying: “I am stunned and pained by the tragic death of the president of the Be'er Sheva District Court, Judge Benny Sagi.” He added, “Judge Sagi was a brilliant and sharp-minded jurist, an outstanding judge who combined immense professional knowledge with exceptional integrity. From afar, I was always impressed by the rare combination he embodied: a judge of stature and authority with a moving personal story, known above all as a principled, humble and kind person, who always saw the individual before him and aspired to peace and mediation. The judicial system today has lost one of its finest sons and leaders.”
Scene of the accident on Highway 6
(Video: Tomer Shunem Halevi)
Justice Minister Yariv Levin also eulogized Sagi, saying: “I received with shock and great sorrow the news of the untimely death of the president of the Be'er Sheva District Court, the Honorable Judge Benny Sagi. President Sagi was a brilliant jurist, an exceptional judge, admired and respected by lawyers and litigants alike. He took upon himself the complex task of managing the Be'er Sheva District Court and, already at the beginning of his tenure, turned it into a court that enjoys broad public trust.”
Levin added that “President Sagi possessed exceptional managerial abilities and rare interpersonal skills. These qualities, together with his broad professional knowledge, earned him the status of a professional and administrative authority among his fellow judges, attorneys and the general public exposed to his work. President Sagi will be greatly missed by the judiciary in general, by the Be'er Sheva District Court in particular, and by me personally.”
Sagi completed his bachelor’s degree in law in 1999 at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and then interned with the late Dr. Emanuel Neumann, head of the civil division at the Central District State Attorney’s Office. He was admitted to the bar in May 2000 and worked as an associate. From 2001 to 2007, he served as a prosecutor in the criminal division of the Central District State Attorney’s Office.
In 2005, Sagi completed a master’s degree in law at Tel Aviv University and over the following two years lectured in a course titled “The Art of Prosecution—Legal Argument and Witness Examination” at Sha’arei Mishpat College. In June 2007, he was appointed a judge in the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court, and from 2010 onward lectured in various courses in criminal law and evidence at Ono Academic College, the College of Law and Business in Ramat Gan and Peres Academic Center in Rehovot.
In February 2013, Sagi was appointed deputy president of the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Courts. In July 2015, he was appointed acting judge of the Tel Aviv District Court for a one-year term, and in October of that year was appointed a permanent judge of the Tel Aviv District Court. In December 2020, he was appointed deputy president of the Tel Aviv–Jaffa District Court. In June 2024, he was appointed acting president of the Be'er Sheva District Court, and in April 2025 was formally appointed president of the court.
The fatal accident occurred near Kibbutz Kfar Menachem and involved Sagi’s motorcycle and a private vehicle, apparently an SUV. According to initial suspicion, a vehicle emerging from an unpaved road struck him. Officers from the Kiryat Malachi police station and traffic accident investigators have launched an investigation into the circumstances.
Magen David Adom paramedics Roi Hazi and Tzvi Zilberman, along with emergency medical technician Meir Avivi from MDA’s motorcycle unit were the first to arrive at the scene. “This was a shocking traffic accident involving a motorcyclist and a vehicle. When we arrived at the scene, we saw the motorcyclist lying on the road unconscious, without a pulse and not breathing, suffering from extremely severe multi-system trauma. We conducted medical checks, but unfortunately his injuries were critical, and we had to pronounce him dead at the scene,” MDA said in a statement.