Biography
She'ar Yashuv Cohen is an 18th-generation descendant in a family of rabbis and Torah scholars. The name "She'ar Yashuv" (Hebrew: שאר ישוב) is based on the eponymous son of the prophet Isaiah (see Isaiah 7:3). His father was Rabbi David Cohen who was known as the "Nazir of Jerusalem." His mother was Sarah Etkin, among the founders of Omen, a religious women's organization that became the Emunah movement. She'ar Yashuv Cohen's parents were cousins.
Cohen attended Talmud Torah Geulah and studied at the yeshivot "Torat Yerushalayim," "Mercaz Harav," and "Etz Hayyim." According to family tradition, Lubavitcher Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson hid in Cohen's grandfather's house after the Bolshevik Revolution. In his youth he became close to Abraham Isaac Kook. Yeshayahu Hadari, co-founder of Yeshivat Hakotel, said at a conference of the Ariel Institute that after Shabbat Kook used to attend the melaveh malkah at the home of the Cohen, and his son (She'ar Yashuv) would play the violin.
Cohen and his sister were encouraged to become Nazirites, but they chose not to follow in their father's path, apart from remaining vegetarians. When he was growing up, Cohen's hair was not cut, he wore canvas shoes, and he followed the Nazirite practices of his father. At the age of 16, a special Beit Din of Jerusalem rabbis convened in his house to release him from the Nazirite vow. Even today, out of an idealism for the holiness of life, he does not eat meat including fish, nor does he drink wine.
Cohen is married to Dr. Naomi, daughter of Rabbi Dr. Hayyim Shimshon (Herbert S.) Goldstein, a rabbinic leader and long-time President of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America and other national organizations, and granddaughter of the philanthropist Harry Fischel. His sister Rabbanit Tzefiya, was married to Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the Chief Rabbi of Israel. The Cohens have a daughter, Eliraz Kraus, six grandchildren, and several great-grandchildren.
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