ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: What are the different types of schools in Israel, and how is religion taught in them?

Dr. Asher Maoz is the Dean of the Peres Academic Center Law School in Rehovot, Israel. He is also Professor of Law at Tel-Aviv University where he teaches constitutional law, family law, state and religion. He is the Editor-in-Chief of “Law, Society & Culture”, and a member of the board of the International Scientific and Professional Advisory Council of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme (ISPAC). Professor Maoz is a fellow of the Whitney R. Harris Institute for global legal studies at Washington University St. Louis, and has been co-chair of the Joint Working Group on Freedom of Religion, Multiculturalism and the Rights of Minorities of the Canada-Israel Legal Cooperation Programme. Dr. Maoz has participated in scores of conferences and symposiums and is the author of dozens of publications, with an emphasis on human rights and freedoms.

Together with Antoine Nasri Messarra of Lebanon and William Warda of Iraq, Professor Maoz was in Madrid recently to present a report on Religious Freedom in the Middle East: study on the Lebanese, Israeli and Iraqi model. This report was the result of a study done by the Centro de Estudios de Oriente Medio (Center of Middle Eastern Studies), a multidisciplinary think tank, which is part of the Spanish NGO Fundación Promoción Social de la Cultura, (Foundation for the Social Promotion of Culture), a private, non-profit organization that works in favor of human development and the promotion of culture.

Dr. Maoz spoke with us about the report and also about religious and other freedoms in Israel.