Born Newcastle , October 15, 1920. Died Newcastle, November 14, 2008, aged 88.
April 2, 2009 11:34ByAnonymous, Anonymous
Active in the Newcastle community, Donald Cohen gave 58 years of service to synagogal affairs.
Educated at Clifton College, Bristol, while boarding at Polack’s, its Jewish house, he read law at Cambridge. He was wounded in Burma while serving in the Second World War as an officer in the 14th Army.
On demobilisation he read for the bar but the untimely death of his father, Simmon Cohen, in 1947 forced a change of career and he took over the family furniture business.
First elected to the council of the Jesmond Hebrew Congregation in 1950, he served as treasurer and president, and remained a council member until the amalgamation of Newcastle’s synagogues in 1973.
An enthusiastic supporter of amalgamation, he was the first treasurer of the United Hebrew Congregation of Newcastle upon Tyne, and remained an original trustee until his death.
He also served as vice-president and, later, treasurer of the Representative Council for Newcastle Jewry, and was a city magistrate from 1966.
He served the NHS as a member of the Newcastle upon Tyne hospital management committee. From 1963-65 he was president of the National Association of Retail Furnishers.
Predeceased by his wife, Jackie, in 2007, he is survived by two daughters and three grandchildren.