Romi Cohn (born Avraham Hakohen Cohn; March 10, 1929 – March 24, 2020) was a

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

n-born American

Rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...

, and real estate developer.

Early life

Avraham Hakohen Cohn was born on March 10, 1929, in

Bratislava Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approxim ...

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

. He was one of seven children.

World War II and the Holocaust

During World War II, most

Slovak Jews The history of the Jews in Slovakia goes back to the 11th century, when the first Jews settled in the area. Early history In the 14th century, about 800 Jews lived in Bratislava, the majority of them engaged in commerce and money lending. ...

were deported to

concentration camps Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

. While Cohn's family managed to sneak him into

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

, his mother, as well as two of his brothers and two of his sisters died in camps. In Hungary, Cohn studied in a

Hasidic Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...

yeshiva A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are s ...

until 1944 when the Nazis occupied the country. At that point, at the age of 15, he escaped back into Slovakia and joined a

partisan brigade The partisan brigade was the main organisational form of the Soviet partisan units during World War II. Partisan brigades were active from shortly after Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 through the end of the war in 1945. On the BSSR territory, ...

fighting the Nazis. As a partisan, he provided Jewish refugees with housing and false Christian identifications. According to the

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account of Representative

Max Rose Max N. Rose (born November 28, 1986) is an American military officer and politician who served as a United States representative from New York for a single term from 2019 to 2021. A moderate Democratic Party (United States), Democrat, he served ...

, he was able to save 56 families through his efforts.

Career

After the war, Cohn emigrated to the U.S. He "became wealthy developing thousands of single-family homes on

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...

" and "turned himself into an expert ''

mohel A ( he, מוֹהֵל , Ashkenazi pronunciation , plural: , arc, מוֹהֲלָא , "circumciser") is a Jew trained in the practice of , the "covenant of circumcision". Etymology The noun ( in Aramaic), meaning "circumciser", is derived fro ...

'', performing thousands of circumcisions and writing scholarly articles." On January 29, 2020, at the invitation of his congressman

, Cohen delivered the opening prayer for the

U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the

liberation of Auschwitz On 27 January 1945, Auschwitz concentration camp—a Nazi concentration camp and extermination camp in occupied Poland where more than a million people were murdered as part of the Nazi's " final solution" to the Jewish question—was libera ...

and

International Holocaust Remembrance Day The International Holocaust Remembrance Day, or the International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, is an international memorial day on 27 January that commemorates the victims of the Holocaust, which resulted in the murder of on ...

''Mohel''

As a ''mohel'', Cohn "set up an operating theater in his Staten Island home to circumcise adult

Russian Jews The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...

who had not been able to undergo the ritual as infants because of Soviet strictures." In almost all of the circumcisions Cohn performed, he practiced the ancient controversial practice of '' metzitzah b'peh'' in which the ''mohel'' places his mouth directly on the circumcision wound to draw blood away from the cut.

Personal life

In the U.S., Cohn married Malvine Geldzahler. They had no children. Cohn died on March 24, 2020, at

Maimonides Medical Center Maimonides Medical Center is a non-profit, non-sectarian hospital located in Borough Park, Brooklyn, Borough Park, in the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Maimonides is b ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, of

respiratory distress Shortness of breath (SOB), also medically known as dyspnea (in AmE) or dyspnoea (in BrE), is an uncomfortable feeling of not being able to breathe well enough. The American Thoracic Society defines it as "a subjective experience of breathing disc ...

caused by

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

and

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. He was 91 years old.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohn, Romi 1929 births 2020 deaths American people of Slovak-Jewish descent American real estate businesspeople Businesspeople from New York City Czechoslovak emigrants to the United States Czechoslovak Jews Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in New York (state) Holocaust survivors Jewish partisans Mohalim Rabbis from Bratislava Orthodox rabbis from New York City Slovak partisans 20th-century American rabbis 21st-century American rabbis Real estate and property developers