One of America’s outstanding Jews today celebrates his seventy-fifth birthday. While B’nai B’rith, with which organization his name has been synonomous, cherishes his natal day anniversary as something peculiarly its own, all Jewry joins in paying homage to Alfred M. Cohen.
The reason for Jewry’s love of Senator Cohen is best expressed, perhaps, by his intimate and close associate, I. M. Rubinow, executive secretary of the B’nai B’rith. In a tribute to his “boss” Mr. Rubinow, listing some of his conspicuous characteristics, speaks of “his inexhaustible industry and capacity for work. His devotion to Jewry and B’nai B’rith—I think I have put them in the right order—his service to B’nai B’rith arises out of his devotion to Judaism and Jewry, not the reverse.”
ACTIVE 65 YEARS
Truly it is his love of Jewry and Judaism that causes Jewry to so love Senator Cohen. His has not been the devotion of a decade or so, the climax of a career devoted in its younger day to other fields. The president of the International Order of B’nai B’rith has been devoted, man and boy, for the past sixty-five years to things Jewish, and we may be erring on the conservative side when we do not include the first ten years of Alfred Cohen’s life in the scope of Jewish activity.
Certainly from the birth of consciousness, whatever that age may be, Alfred Cohen was conscious of his Jewishness. His father, Morton S. Cohen, an Englishman by birth, was one of the earliest members of the B’nai B’rith. The son, who was born in Cincinnati, grew up in that citadel of Reform Judaism under the personal tutelage of the founder of the Reform Movement, Isaac M. Wise.
Senator Cohen was one of the youngsters Rabbi Wise had in mind when he first projected the idea of the Hebrew Union College. At the age of twelve, he was one of five boys chosen for a Jewish school that the Rabbi was developing as a nucleus for his liberal theological school.
STUDIED LAW
Alfred Cohen never became a rabbi; he studied law. But years later he was elected president of the board of governors of the Hebrew Union College. It was just one of the many ramifications of his many sided Judaism. Certainly Rabbi Wise, were he alive today, would be proud of the little boy he placed so much confidence in sixty-three years ago.
Senator Cohen’s greatest Jewish interest, though, is quite naturally B’nai B’rith of which he has for the past ten years been international president. As head of this largest of all fraternal lodges, Alfred Cohen has been one of the leaders of Israel. It was he who headed the B’nai B’rith deputation in the Joint Consultative Council of the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress and it was B’nai B’rith that was called to consider and act for American Jewry on the problems besetting Jews as a result of the Hitler regime in Germany.
It was Senator Cohen, as a matter of fact, who more than any one else is responsible for the measure of unity among Jewish leaders achieved by the Joint Council. It was he who called the first meeting of the three groups on Washington’s Birthday of 1933, the meeting that paved the way for the ultimate adoption of the Joint Council on June 23 of that year. As a result of his efforts in the establishment of the alliance, the B’nai B’rith leader was honored by being chosen as its chairman.
DEFINES JEWRY’S NEED
Senator Cohen’s views on the Joint Council were first expressed before a meeting of the executive committee of B’nai B’rith in January of 1933. He then declared: “What in my opinion is needed in American Jewry is a board of deputies, made up of representatives of all organizations which assume to deal with matters of national and international character so that duplication of effort may be avoided.”
Obviously, the Senator had in mind the establishment of an American equivalent of the British Board of Deputies. In this, he was not quite successful but the Joint Consultative Council is the first step in the direction of unity in American Jewry. From it may eventually come an authoritative and recognized American Jewish body, something that neither the American Jewish Committee nor the American Jewish Congress can rightfully claim today. B’nai B’rith was a leader in this movement and Alfred M. Cohen, of course, shares a major part of the acclaim the lodge merits for this work.
AIDED REICH JEWS
Senator Cohen has labored mightily in behalf of the German Jews. As a member of the Joint Council, he has maintained direct contact with Secretary of State Hull. He personally launched a petition to President Roosevelt, signed by a quarter million persons, half Jews and half Gentile, which urged the President “to use the good offices of this country, through proper diplomatic channels and in accordance with the traditions of our country, to make clear that together with the entire civilized world the American people are struck with horror at these events and their continuance despite the suave assurances of the German Chancellor as to Germany’s peaceful intent.”
When the German lodges of B’nai B’rith were threatened with destruction by the German government, Senator Cohen made appeals to the Secretary of State for his brother lodge members. Though some of the lodges were dissolved and the entire Order in Germany is under complete sur-officially banned by the Nazi govveillance, B’nai B’rith was never ernment. This, undoubtedly, is another testimonial to the vigilance of Senator Cohen and the strength he was able to rally to the aid of the German lodges.
HILLEL HIS PET
But although his activities in behalf of the German Jews comprise the most dramatic aspect of Senator Cohen’s ten year leadership of B’nai B’rith, there are many who hold that his devotion to the Hillel Foundation is the crowning achievement of his career. Hillel is B’nai B’rith on the college campuses. There are now nine such foundations, each headed by a resident rabbi. The idea was conceived by the late Rabbi Benjamin Frankel in 1925, the year Alfred Cohen assumed the presidency of the Order. And it was with his sympathetic cooperation that the movement grew to its present status, so that now there are foundations at Illinois, where it began, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan, Cornell, Texas, Northwestern, California and Alabama, which opened this year.
The purpose of the Foundation, now under the national leadership of Dr. Abraham L. Sachar, is perhaps best expressed by its founder, Rabbi Frankel. Ten years ago, he said: “In their most impressionable years young Jews were without Jewish contacts at the universities. B’nai B’rith served the orphan, the sick, the aged—it should not shirk its duty to the young people if the next generation was to have leaders.”
SPONSORED A. Z. A.
B’nai B’rith under the direction of Alfred Cohen did not shirk his duties. Further, it has sponsored a junior order, Aleph Zadik Aleph, the Junior B’nai B’rith, each chapter of which is sponsored by a senior lodge. It is now grown to 175 units with a membership of some 4,000, between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one.
Outside the realm of Jewish affairs, Senator Cohen has also been a leader, a shining success. The graduate of the University of Cincinnati Law School, class of 1880, is now senior member of the law firm of Cohen, Mack and Hurtig. He is also president of the People’s Bank and Savings Company.
Politically, Alfred M. Cohen was a Cincinnati councilman at the age of twenty-four; a twice elected Ohio State Senator. Following his terms at Columbus he was, in 1900, at the age of forty-one a candidate for mayor on the Reform ticket. He was thrice a presidential elector, serving twice as president of the Ohio Electoral College. He was life long friend of two presidents, Taft and Harding. He was a classmate of President Taft and a fellow State Senator with President Harding.
Thus at seventy-five, Senator Cohen could well sit back and contemplate a successful career. But he won’t. He’ll continue his many activities. He will not cease in his devotions to Jewry and B’nai B’rith. A worker, he will remain so to the end. The very present that B’nai B’rith has chosen for him is indicate of what his intimates know he most desires. B’nai B’rith is conducing a nation-wide membership campaign for 75,000 new members, one thousand members for every year of its president’s life. The additional roster will be presented to Alfred M. Cohen as his Order’s present to its leader.
And 75,000 new members will just mean further responsibility to Senator Cohen. And he’ll revel in it.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
