Jacques Cohn

Origins and early life

Jacques Cohn, whom everyone called Bô, was born at Strasbourg on 8 July 1916 and died in Jerusalem on 22 April 1974; the sources describe him as a French Orthodox Jewish teacher.

Work and career

His father Berthold Cohn, born at Rawicz in 1878 and dead in Paris on 11 May 1930, was president of the Orthodox Jewish community Etz Haim of Strasbourg. He was educated at the lycée Fustel-de-Coulanges from 1922 to 1934 and took a degree in philosophy and a certificate in psychology at the University of Strasbourg in 1939. In 1936 he took part in the founding of the École Maïmonide at Boulogne-Billancourt and directed it, and he taught Judaism to the young people of the Orthodox community of Strasbourg, co-founding the Orthodox youth movement Yechouroun.

He served as sergeant and orderly in the 95th infantry regiment in 1939 and 1940, then from 1941 to 1943 directed children's homes and summer camps of the Œuvre de secours aux enfants. He went on to join the armed Jewish resistance in the maquis of Robert Gamzon in the Tarn. On 10 April 1945 he married Margot Kahn, who had worked in the Garel network rescuing Jewish children.