Background
Cohen was born in Budwitcher, Poland to an ethnic Jewish family on May 11, 1868. In 1888, he entered the firm of Lee & Cohen in Montreal. Later became partner with his father in the firm of L. Cohen & Son.
In 1895, he established W. R. Cuthbert & Company
In 1900, he organized the Canadian Improvement Company, a dredging contractor. In 1906, he founded The Freedman Company in Montreal.
And in May 1919, he organized and became President of Canadian Export Clothiers, Limited. The Freedman Company went on to become one of Montreal’s largest clothing companies.
Education
He was educated at the McGill Model School and the Catholic Commercial Academy in Montreal.
Career
He is the grandfather of In 1897, Cohen co-founded with Samuel William Jacobs, the Canadian Jewish Times, the first English language Jewish newspaper in Canada. The newspaper promoted the Canadianization of recent East European Jewish immigrants and encouraged their acceptance of Canadian customs as Cohen felt that the old world customs of immigrant Jews were one of the main causes of anti-Semitism. In 1914, the paper was purchased by Hirsch Wolofsky, owner of the Yiddish language Keneder Adler, who transformed it into the Canadian Jewish Chronicle.
He was elected the first president of the Canadian Jewish Congress in 1919 and organized the Jewish Immigrant Aid Services of Canada.
Cohen was also a leader of the Young Men's Hebrew Benevolent Society (later the Baron de Hirsch Institute) and the United Talmud Torahs, a Jewish day school in Montreal. He also served as president of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim and president of the Jewish Colonization Association in Canada.
Horace Rives Cohen, who was Captain and Quartermaster of his battalion in the late World War. Lawrence Zebulun Cohen, student at McGill University, and Sylvia Lillian Cohen.
