Lyon Cohen

Cohen was born in Congress Poland, part of the Russian Empire, to a Jewish family on May 11, 1868. He immigrated to Canada with his parents in 1871. In 1897, Cohen and Samuel William Jacobs founded 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 died on August 17, 1937, at the age of 69. ==Philanthropy==

Cohen was elected the first president of the Canadian Jewish Congress in 1919 and organized the Jewish Immigrant Aid Services of Canada. He also served as president of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim and president of the Jewish Colonization Association in Canada. ==Personal life==

Cohen married Rachel Friedman of Montreal on February 17, 1891. She was the founder and President of Jewish Endeavour Sewing School. They had three sons and one daughter: • Nathan Bernard Cohen, who served as a lieutenant in the First World War; he married Lithuanian Jewish immigrant Masha Klonitsky and they had one daughter and one son: • Esther Cohen and • singer/poet Leonard Cohen. • Horace Rives Cohen, who was a captain and quartermaster of his battalion in World War I; • Sylvia Lillian Cohen. ==References==