Arthur A. Cohen

Who was Arthur A. Cohen?

Arthur Allen Cohen was an American Jewish scholar, theologian, and author. He also collected rare books, founded an antiquarian bookstore named Ex Libris, and served as an editor for several publishers, including the Noonday Press, which he co-founded, and Holt, Rinehart & Winston, where he served as editor-in-chief.

Educated at the University of Chicago and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Cohen divided his writing efforts between non-fiction, including a study of Martin Buber, and several novels, including In the Days of Simon Stern, Acts of Theft, The Carpenter Years, and An Admirable Woman, the last of which won the National Jewish Book Award. His book The Natural and the Supernatural Jew traced the history of Jewish theology from the late 15th century, through the German Jewish renaissance, and into what he saw as a hopeful yet troubled American Jewish scene. Cohen also edited a popular reader on Jewish thought, Arguments and Doctrines, and co-edited Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, which appeared posthumously.

In 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.