Sir Leonard Lionel Cohen Dead in England at 80

The death of Sir Leonard Lionel Cohen, retired banker, philanthropist and a leader of British Jewry, was announced early today. He would have been eighty years old on April 17. Sir Leonard was for twenty years president of the Jewish Colonization Association, which administers a $30,000,000 bequest of the late Baron de Hirsch. At the time of his death Sir Leonard was honorary president of the Association, having resigned from the presidency in 1934 because of ill health.

Born in London, the son of Lionel Louis Cohen, a Member of Parliament, and Eliza Henrietta Cohen, he was educated privately and in King’s College School in London. A partner in the now-defunct firm of Louis Cohen and Sons, foreign bankers, Sir Leonard was a member of the Committee of the Stock Exchange from 1896 to 1904, a director of the Bengal and North-western Railway and of the Rohilkund and Kumaon Railway. He served from 1900 to 1920 as a member of the Central Committee on the Unemployed, and more recently was honorary secretary of King Edward’s Hospital Fund for London and a member of the Council of the Metropolitan Hospital Sunday Fund.

Sir Leonard had early been active in Jewish affairs, being named a member of the Jewish Board of Guardians in 1888, but when he retired from business in 1895, he began to devote most of his leisure time to charitable work and his efforts to help his coreligionists.

He succeeded his father, who had founded the Jewish Board, as its president and served in this position for more than twenty years. The plight of the Russian Jews attracted his attention, and from 1907 until its dissolution after the war he was a member of the Russo-Jewish Committee. He also represented the Anglo-Jewish Association in the Joint Foreign Committee.

Sir Leonard’s association with the ICA began nearly forty years ago. He served as its vice-president for twelve years before being elected president–the first Briton to head this organization, which sponsored schemes of Jewish colonization and reconstruction in many parts of the world.

Sir Leonard was also honorary president of the American Jewish Joint Reconstruction Foundation. His humanitarian activities were recognized by the Crown, which conferred on him a knighthood in the Victorian Order. His activities were praised by the Duke of Windsor, then Prince of Wales. Sir Leonard is survived by a son, Lionel Leonard Cohen, an attorney.