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.
