Nili Cohen (born 1947) is an Israeli professor and legal expert. She is a recipient of the Israel Prize,[1] and was the President of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, succeeding Prof. Ruth Arnon,[2] Cohen's role model.[3] She is aa member of the Academia Europaea, of the American Philosophical Society, and a foreign member of the accademia dei lincei.
Nili Cohen was born in Kfar Saba, 1947.[4] She grew up and was educated in Tel Aviv and graduated from Ironi Dalet High School.[4] Her father was a teacher in that city.[3] Cohen's grandmother, Batsheva (Bertha) Friedberg Grabelsky, lived in Manhattan, and married a Ukraine immigrant, Boris Grabelsky. Bertha was an editor, translator, Hebraist, and Zionist, who, in the 1920s, published Eden, a newspaper for Jewish teenagers.[3]
An alumnus of Tel Aviv University (TAU), where Cohen received her LL.B., LL.M., and Ph.D. degrees, she was the co-founding editor of the TAU Law Review. In 1998, Cohen received an Honorary Degree from the University of Buenos Aires.[5]
She serves as the Benno Gitter Chair in Comparative Contract Law. From 1994 to 1997, she was the Vice-Rector (1994–1997) of TAU, and served as the Rector from 1997 till 2001.[5] She is the Professor emeritus of TAU's Buchmann Faculty of Law.[1] Cohen became a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences in 2004,[3] and was elected its president in 2015.[1]
She was a candidate for Supreme Court of Israel, but her appointment was blocked in a process that garnered political attention.[6][7]
Cohen is a widow; her husband, Amiram Cohen, had been a lawyer. They have two daughters and one son.[3]