Israel Cohen

Israel Cohen

Israel Cohen ( 1879 - November 26, 1961 in London ) was a British journalist and Zionist leader.

Life and activity

Cohen grew up as the son of Polish-Jewish emigrants in Manchester . He attended the Manchester Jewish School (1884-1892) and then the city's Grammar School (1892-1895). He studied at Jews' College and University College London , where he earned a bachelor's degree.

From 1895 Cohen was active in the Zionist movement. After the formation of the World Zionist Organization at the First Zionist Congress in Basel in August 1897, he joined this organization. From 1909 on he headed the English section of the Zionist Central Office in Cologne and Berlin. In addition to his work for the Zionist movement, he worked as a Berlin correspondent for the London Times and the Manchester Guardian during his time in Germany . He had previously contributed to newspapers such as the Manchester Evening Chronicle and Jewish World since 1897 .

Cohen was also an extremely prolific author in other ways: he published more than a dozen books in which he dealt primarily with the subjects of Zionism and anti-Semitism .

During the First World War , Cohen was interned in Germany from November 1914 to 1916 for 16 months in the civil prison camp in Ruhleben. In 1917 he published a book about his experiences while in prison. In the book it becomes clear how the Jewish internees came under pressure from two sides. The Jewish internees were confronted with anti-Semitic prejudice by the German guards, and they suspected the English inmates of trying to obtain their release by promising the Germans to fight against England on their side after their release.

In 1918 Cohen was appointed secretary of the World Zionist Organization in London. In the following years he was mainly concerned with negotiating the leadership of this organization with political bodies as well as providing funds to finance the same.

In the wake of the 1921 Zionist Congress in Karlovy Vary , Cohen was appointed Secretary General of the Zionist Organization, which he remained until 1939.

In the late 1930s, Cohen, as a prominent Jew in public life in Great Britain, was classified as an important target by the police forces of Nazi Germany. In the spring of 1940 the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a list of people whom the Nazi surveillance apparatus considered particularly dangerous or important, which is why they would be removed from the United States in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht Occupation troops following special SS commandos should be located and arrested with special priority.

In 1946 he took part in the Paris Peace Conference as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee .

Fonts

• Israel in Italy , 1909.
• Uionist Work in Palestine , 1911.
• Jewish Life in Modern Times , 1914.
• Ruhleben Prison Camp. A Record of Nineteen Months' Internment , 1917.
• The Journey of a Jewish Traveler . 1925.
• A Ghetto Gallery , 1931.
• Britain's Nameless Ally , 1942.
• History of the Jews of Vilna , 1943.
• The Jews in the War , 1943.
• The Zionist Movement , 1946.
• The Progress of Zionis , 1947.
• A Jewish Pilgrimage. The Autobiography of Israel Cohen , Vallentine, London 1956.
• Theodore Herzl - Founder of Political Zionism , 1959.

literature

• Gerry Black: "Israel Cohen (1879–1961)", in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Susanne Terwey: Moderner Antisemitismus in Great Britain, 1899-1919 - On the function of prejudices as well as immigration and national identity , Königshausen & Neumann, 2006, ISBN 3-8260-3460-0 , p. 9
2. ^ Entry on Cohen on the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London) .