Aviad Hacohen

Aviad Hacohen

Aviad Hacohen (1962 -) is an Israeli attorney and professor of law.

Biography

Professor Aviad Hacohen is the son of Rabbi Menachem Hacohen, who was a Labor party member of the Israeli Parliament (Knesset), and Devora Hacohen, a historian at Bar-Ilan University. Hacohen studied at Netiv Meir yeshiva high school and afterwards at Yeshivat Har Etzion and Yeshivat HaKotel. He served in the Israel Defense Forces in a hesder program combining yeshiva studies with army service. He received his BA in law from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1989. While engaged in his studies he also served as a research assistant in the Institute for Jewish Law of the law school. He did his articles for the Deputy Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, Professor Menachem Elon, and for Dr. Mishael Cheshin, who later served as Deputy Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In 1991, Hacohen began to teach as an assistant in the law school of the Hebrew University while studying for an MA in law, which he received cum laude in 1993. In 1995 he began to teach Jewish law and communications law at Bar Ilan University. In 1996, he was appointed Director of the Center for the Instruction and Study of Jewish Law at the Sha'arei Mishpat Academic Center, where he also served as a lecturer. He received his PhD in law magna cum laude from the law school of the Hebrew University in 2003.

Legal career

While working as a lecturer in law, Hacohen participated in research institutes and forums, including the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Mosaica, the Institute for the Study of Religion, Society and State which he founded and heads. He has written hundreds of articles which have been published in academic and research journals and in publications for the general public, including articles on the weekly Torah portion published by the Ministry of Justice. Since 2001, he has written a weekly column on the Torah portion for “Shabbaton” which is distributed in tens of thousands of copies and appears on the internet as well. In 1997, he served as a member of the editorial board for the official publication of Supreme Court decisions and since 2006 he has served as its editor-in-chief. He wrote the entries regarding human rights in the new edition of the Encyclopedia Judaica, including the entries on freedom of expression, freedom of movement and freedom of occupation. In 2011, he wrote the mission statement of the National Library that was presented at a festive ceremony in the presence of the President of the State of Israel, the Prime Minister and senior government officials.

Hacohen is a member of the editorial boards of the “Jewish Law Yearbook” (published by the Institute for Jewish Law of the law school of Hebrew University); “Medicine and Law”, “Machanaim” , “Masehkhet”, “Sha’arei Mishpat”, “Halishka – The Magazine of the Bar Association in Jerusalem”, “Alon Shvut for the Graduates of Yeshivat Har Etzion” and others.

Hacohen serves as the legal commentator for the newspaper “Israel Today”. His articles have appeared in “Haaretz”, “Yediot Acharonot”, Maariv”, “Makor Rishon”, “Nekudah”, “Hatzofeh”, “The Jerusalem Post” and others.

Since 1994, Hacohen has served as the general counsel for the Israel Festival and of the movement “Hakol Hinukh” [“Everything is Education”]. He is an active member of the Israel Bar Associationthe Jerusalem Committee of the Bar Association, the disciplinary tribunal of the Bar Association and various public commissions. He served as an advisor to the Codification Commission [for the codification of the civil laws] and the Shoshani Commission that dealt with budgeting for educational institutions. He is director and chairman of the Logistics Committee of the Birthright Program. He is a member of the Center for Women's Justice Israel, the Yeshivat Har Etzion Foundation and the Takana Forum that addresses sexual harassment in the religious community.

In 2007 and 2011 Hacohen’s name was on the list of candidates submitted to the Commission for the Appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court.

In 2011, Hacohen was appointed general counsel to Mifal HaPayis, the state lottery.

Notable cases

• Represented the petitioners in a petition against the broadcasting on television of a docu-drama that sullied the reputation of Chana Senesh and dishonored her memory.
• Prevailed in a petition that he submitted on behalf of “Women in Green” and Nadia Matar for the right to hold a march on the night of Tisha B'Av around the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.
• Argued in favor of permitting women to deliver eulogies at funerals.
• Represented the organizations Tzohar and Kolech in an attempt to prevent the appointment of ultra-Orthodox rabbinic court judges and represented women’s organizations in the arguments regarding the proposed plea bargain in the case of President Moshe Katzav.
• Represented the Center for Women’s Justice in a petition in 2006 intended to regulate the activities of a government fund that pays money to induce men who were refusing to grant divorces to their wives to grant the divorces, thereby indirectly encouraging them to withhold divorces. In the wake of the petition, the fund’s activities were regulated and criteria were established for its activities.
• Petitioned the High Court of Justice in June, 2008, on behalf of a woman and her three children, as well as 11 organizations including Na'amat, Emunah, Wizo, the Center for Women’s Justice and the Ohr Torah institutions, when the woman’s conversion was decreed invalid by the rabbinic court 15 years after she converted.
• Represented women whose husbands had abandoned them or refused to give them divorces in proceedings before the Supreme Court.
• Represented the residents of Gush Katif in petitions filed with the special committee pursuant to the Implementation of the Withdrawal Plan from Gaza Law.
• Represented residents of Kfar Maimon in a petition to the High Court of Justice in 2005, after the police prevented them from leaving the settlement due to the apprehension that they would join the demonstrators against the withdrawal from Gaza.
• Represented the Noar KaHalacha organization and Yoav Laloum, in 2008, in their petition to rule that the actions of the Beit Yaakov school in Emanuel constituted ethnic discrimination. The High Court of Justice accepted the petition and laid down basic legal principles regarding the right to equal education. In 2011, he filed an additional petition on behalf of the same petitioners against the Ministry of Education and the local authorities regarding the ethnic discrimination in institutions of secondary education for girls in the ultra-Orthodox sector.
• In 2008, he represented a fencer who was prevented from participating in a competition because he observed Sabbath. The High Court of Justice issued an order requiring the Israel Fencing Association to move the competition to a weekday and to enable the fencer to compete on equal footing with the other participants.
• In a petition filed in 2009, seeking to indict the Rabbi of Tzefat, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, for things he had said, successfully represented Rabbi Eliyahu, resulting in denial of the petition (HCJ 6702/05).
• Represented Nir Barkat, the mayor of Jerusalem, in 2010, in a petition that prevented manipulation in the selection process of the chief rabbis of Jerusalem.

In 2010-2011 represented Rachel Azaria, a member of the Jerusalem City Council in two petitions that sought to prevent gender segregation in the Mea Shearim neighborhood.

• In 2012 represented members of the Yerushalmim Movement in a petition to the High Court of Justice regarding the absence of pictures of women in advertisements on the buses in Jerusalem.

In 2008, Hacohen was among the few members (three out of 30) on the Central Elections Committee for the 18th Knesset who objected to the disqualification of the Arab lists to participate in the elections, a position that was backed-up later in a Supreme Court decision to overrule the disqualification.

Views and opinions

Hacohen is identified with the philosophy of Modern Orthodoxy, including the integration of Torah and academic pursuits. He expresses liberal economic positions and is among the founders of the organization Bema’aglei Tzedek. As part of his activity in the organization he has taken a firm stand in favor of outright warfare against the trade in women, and has called for working to increase public awareness of people with disabilities and insuring that their special needs are met, and closing the economic gaps in Israeli society. He has also expressed strong criticism of what he terms the negligence of the religious community in dealing with cases of sexual assault and refusal by men to give divorces to their wives.

Published works

His book “The Tears of the Oppressed,” an examination of the agunah problem, was published in the United States in 2004. In this work Hacohen, relying on halakhic sources, proposes new approaches for solving the problem of women unable to obtain a divorce. In 2011, his book “Parshiyot v’Mishpatim.” a collection of some of his articles, including chapters on human rights, criminal law and civil law and their relation to Jewish law, was published.

External links

• Prof. Aviad Hacohen, profile at Van Leer Jerusalem Institute