Ruth Gavison was the Haim H. Cohn Professor of Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A founding member of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, she served as its President in 1996-1999. She was also the founding President of the Metzilah Center, a member of the International Commission of Jurists, and a member of the presidium of Moetzet Yahad, a national body on consensus-building between religious and secular Jews in Israel. Her areas of research included the relationship between law and politics, processes of constitution-making, the private-public distinction, Israeli society, and the role of laws and courts in divided democracies.