Job Cohen

Job Cohen

Marius Job Cohen (born October 18, 1947 in Haarlem ) is a Dutch politician of the social democratic PvdA . He was Mayor of Amsterdam from 2001 to 2010. On March 12, 2010, he resigned to announce his candidacy for his party's top candidate for the 2010 Dutch general election.

Life

Cohen comes from a Liberal Jewish family. He studied law at the University of Groningen . He later worked at Leiden University and Maastricht University . He became professor at Maastricht University in 1983 and rector in 1991 .

He became State Secretary for Education in the Lubbers Cabinet in 1993 . After a year he returned to his scientific work. At that time he was also a member of the First Chamber of the States General , the upper house of the Dutch Parliament. In 1998 he left the First Chamber to become State Secretary for Justice in the Kok cabinet . As State Secretary he was responsible, among other things, for the introduction of a new immigration law .

He gave up this post and was appointed Mayor of Amsterdam on January 17, 2001 . One of his first appearances in his new role was the wedding of a same-sex couple, the first in the Netherlands. Just a few months earlier, Cohen had defended the gay marriage law in parliament as Secretary of State . On February 2, 2002 he performed the civil wedding of Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Máxima .

Cohen was a candidate for prime minister in the 2003 general election. However, the Christian Democratic Prime Minister Balkenende remained in office and Cohen remained mayor.

The Time magazine called Cohen for his appearance after the murder of Theo van Gogh in November 2004 as "European Hero" (European hero). Cohen led the population in their protest while calling for unity and tolerance. Since then, during his tenure as mayor, he has endeavored to “hold the whole thing together” (Dutch: “de boel bij elkaar te houden”) so that Amsterdam can live up to its reputation as a cosmopolitan and tolerant city in the future.

Cohen finished second behind John So from Melbourne at the 2006 World Mayor Award . A total of fifty mayors from all five continents were nominated.

Job Cohen is the younger brother of science historian Floris Cohen and son of historian Dolf Cohen .

Since he was 20, Job Cohen has been a member of the Partij van de Arbeid , the social democratic party in the Netherlands, of which he has been the leader of the party since April 2010, succeeding Wouter Bos . In February 2012, Cohen resigned as party leader. In January 2019 Cohen took over the chairmanship of the Commissie Individuele Tegemoetkoming Slachtoffers WOII Transporten NS , which decides on the award of compensation from the Nederlandse Spoorwegen to Jewish deportation victims .

Cohen is married with a son and a daughter.

Publications

• 2009: Binden , with an interview by Bas Heintje, Prometheus / Bert Bakker, Amsterdam, ISBN 978-90-35-13411-9 (a selection of speeches and lectures)
• 2009: Sustainable Humanities. Report for the Netherlands Committee on the Future of the Humanities in the Netherlands , Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, ISBN 978-90-8964-142-7

Web links

Commons : Job Cohen  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Job Cohen on Amsterdam.nl
• Mayor's profile

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Author: Iris Reshef of March 12, 2010. Mayor Cohen resigns  ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Dutch, accessed March 13, 2010  
2. ↑ PvdA: Rob Cohen ( Memento of the original from March 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Commissie. In: commissietegemoetkomingns.nl. Retrieved July 30, 2020 (Dutch). 

predecessor	Office	successor
Schelto Patijn	Mayor of Amsterdam 2001–2010	Lodewijk Asscher (acting)