Amin Tarif

Overview

Amin Tarif (c. 1898–October 1993) was an Israeli Druze spiritual leader. Born in Julis in the Galilee, he became a sheikh in 1928 following his father’s death. After Israel’s War of Independence, he emerged as head of the Druze community in Israel. His leadership extended across religious and judicial institutions: he headed the Druze religious council from 1957, led the Druze court of appeals from 1963, and served as president of the community’s High Court. In 1990, he received the Israel Prize for his contribution to national and social life.

Tarif’s career connected village-based religious leadership with institutions serving the Druze community throughout Israel. His appointments in 1957 and 1963 mark distinct stages in that career. The first placed him at the head of the religious council; the second placed him at the head of the court of appeals. Alongside those offices, his standing as spiritual leader made him a prominent figure in the community’s public life.

Early life

Tarif was born around 1898 in Julis, a Druze village in the Galilee. Julis remained closely associated with him throughout his life and was known as the home of the longtime spiritual leader of Israel’s Druze community. His approximate birth year places his childhood at the close of the nineteenth century, decades before the establishment of the State of Israel. His later prominence began from this local setting: Julis was both his birthplace and the village with which his name continued to be identified.

His father’s death preceded Tarif’s becoming a sheikh in 1928. That date marks the beginning of his recorded religious leadership and predates the state institutions he would later head. The sequence is central to his biography. He first assumed the standing of a sheikh, then became head of the Druze community in Israel after the War of Independence, and subsequently took formal leadership roles in its religious council and courts.

Career

Following Israel’s War of Independence, Tarif became head of the country’s Druze community and served as its spiritual leader. The position placed him at the center of communal religious life during the first decades of the State of Israel. His leadership was sustained through successive appointments rather than confined to a single office. It encompassed the religious council, the court of appeals, and the community’s High Court.

In 1957, Tarif became head of the Druze religious council. This appointment gave formal institutional expression to his leadership of the community. In 1963, he became head of the Druze court of appeals. He also served as president of the Israeli Druze community’s High Court. These roles joined spiritual authority with responsibility at the highest levels of the community’s religious judicial system. His career therefore covered both communal guidance and the institutions through which Druze religious affairs were addressed.

Tarif’s long tenure was recognized beyond the Druze community. In 1990, he received the Israel Prize for his special contribution to national and social life. The award acknowledged a career that had begun with his becoming a sheikh in 1928 and continued through decades of leadership in Israel. By the time he received the prize, his service had spanned the establishment of the state, his rise to communal leadership after the War of Independence, and his later work in the religious council and courts.

Death or current status

Tarif died in October 1993. He had lived for approximately ninety-five years, from around 1898 to 1993, and had remained associated with Julis throughout his life. His death ended a period of religious leadership that began before Israel’s independence and continued through much of the state’s first half-century. Julis remained a place associated with his memory as well as his birth and home.

Legacy

Tarif is remembered for his long spiritual leadership of the Druze community in Israel and for the religious institutions he headed. His 1990 Israel Prize records the national recognition given to his contribution to social and public life. The succession of offices he held—from head of the religious council to head of the court of appeals and president of the High Court—also defines his institutional legacy.

His family remained present in Israeli public life. His grandson Saleh Tarif, who lived in Julis, later became the first Druze minister in an Israeli government. The distinction links two generations of the family to different forms of public service: Amin Tarif’s religious and communal leadership, and Saleh Tarif’s role in government. Tarif’s birthplace and home village thus remained part of the account of both his own life and his family’s later prominence.