Steven M. Cohen

(1950-)

Steven Cohen is a Jewish American sociologist and professor of social policy.

Born on April 3, 1950 in Brooklyn, New York, Steven Cohen is the son of Toby nee Fassman and Max Cohen and the grandchild of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. He was raised in a home characterized by a strong connection with Jewish history, culture, and religion.

Cohen is a renowned sociologist of American Jewry and directs the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at New York University Wagner. In the past, Cohen has served as Professor at the Melton Centre for Jewish Education; the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; and Queens College, City University of New York. He has also been a visiting professor at Brandeis University, Yale University, and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City.

Cohen received his B.A. from Columbia University in 1970 and his Ph.D in sociology, also from Columbia, in 1974. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on “Interethnic Marriage and Friendship.”

Cohen has written or edited a dozen books and hundreds of scholarly articles and reports on such issues as Jewish identity, community and education. He co-authored The Jew Within: Self, Family and Community in America with Arnold Eisen. He co-authored with Charles Liebman Two Worlds of Judaism: The Israeli and American Experience and Cosmopolitans and Parochials: Modern Orthodox Jews in America with Samuel Heilman. Some of his earlier publications include American Modernity & Jewish Identity and American Assimilation or Jewish Revival?

In 2011, Cohen received an honorary doctorate from the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies and, in 2010 he received the Marshall Sklare Award for the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry. Also in 2010, he was cited by the Forward as one of the Forward Fifty, for the second time. His book, Sacred Strategies, that he coauthored, won a National Jewish Book Award in 2010.

Cohen is married to Rabbi Marion Lev-Cohen and the couple splits their time between Jerusalem and New York City.

Sources: Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, “Faculty: Steven M. Cohen,” HUC, 2011, Wikipedia