Leon Cohen is a musician who found a rhythm in writing. For more than three decades, this clarinet player dedicated himself as a journalist to covering Milwaukee’s and Wisconsin’s Jewish community.
“We are grateful for Leon’s contributions to the Chronicle,” said Milwaukee Jewish Federation President and CEO Hannah Rosenthal. “With the new design and the improved content, he’s leaving the print edition of the newspaper at an all-time high.”
Cohen presided over the most significant redesign in the history of the Chronicle, where the cover page is a single photo linked to a major story with a more contemporary design.
In his time at the Chronicle Cohen won five Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism. His most recent win was in 2013.
Journalism was not Beaver Dam-native Cohen’s original career plan. He was a music major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
But he was also always interested in Judaism, Jewish history and Israel. He said he was one of the few in his Hebrew school class who attended Milwaukee’s Hebrew high school after his bar mitzvah ceremony.
Returning to Milwaukee after earning a master’s degree in music history and literature from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., Cohen started writing freelance reviews and arts features for the old Milwaukee Sentinel.
“I originally had the idea of becoming a music critic,” Cohen said.
Then Chronicle editor Andy Muchin saw his work and contacted Cohen.
“Andy tried me out for a while and then hired me,” Cohen remembered.
Cohen started as staff writer in 1983. At the time, The Chronicle was a weekly publication.
Eventually, Cohen became op-ed editor. While handling that position, he worked under a number of editors. He grew to love the job.
“One of the great things about Jewish community journalism is that you really cover the entire world,” he said. Jewish journalism, he said, deals with everything from family holiday traditions to “the cosmic questions: ‘Does G-d exist? What does G-d want of us?’”
Meeting many world famous people, including Elie Wiesel and Victor Frankel, also was a perk, Cohen said.
There was a gap in Cohen’s Chronicle tenure. In 2009, the Chronicle switched from a weekly to monthly publication. Cohen was laid off. He went to work part-time for the Wisconsin Society of Jewish Learning as director of its Wisconsin Small Jewish Communities History Project.
In 2010 though, the then-Chronicle editor left the job. Cohen was brought in to be the interim editor until a permanent replacement was found.
A number of stories stood out for Cohen in the three decades he covered Wisconsin’s Jewish community, he said. One of the most important was the controversy over the naming of the Grafton, Wis., public library for the USS Liberty.
The Israeli Air Force and Navy attacked Liberty during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Thirty-four U.S. personnel were killed, and 171 crewmembers were wounded. Israel said the attack was an accident, but Liberty crew members and others have claimed it was deliberate.
In 1988, the village of Grafton named its new library for the ship. Two brothers who felt the Liberty should be memorialized pushed the name. There were charges that the naming was a thinly veiled anti-Semitic attack.
“It helped that I was a Navy hospital corpsman (medic),” Cohen said. “I did 10 months of active duty and five years of reserve duty.” When the USS Liberty Association (a group made of the ship’s crew) got involved, Cohen was able to talk to them. “I had a certain sympathy for the Navy.”
During his time as Chronicle editor, Cohen pushed for diversity on its pages. He always tried to feature all of the stripes of Jewish life and observance. He said he is very proud of that.
Cohen earned one Rockower award for Excellence in Single Commentary for a November, 2012 opinion piece, “We want to be inclusive, but you must want to be included.” In the piece, Cohen spoke of his desire for the Chronicle to be truly inclusive, presenting the range of opinions that exist in the community.
“The Chronicle has never been just a job for me,” Cohen stated. “It has been a cause – defending Israel and talking about and defending the whole range of Jewish life.”
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