Books
I have been writing for many years and over time I have gathered together my works and published them. They are available on-line at Amazon.com, including my auto-biographical novel, Amanuensis (2009); my collections of short stories, Discovering America and Trove, (2009); my memoir, Confessions of a Jewish Activist (2010); my story of intrigue in science, Antisense (2014); my telling of the story of a Chilean Christian who became an Israeli for love, Zionism: A Love Story (2015); my story about anti-Semitism and science, Of Gods and Lemurs (2015); my collection of humorous tales, Humorous Husbandry (2016); coping with my wife's diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, Life on Planet Alz (2017); my book about the re-emergence of the Crypto-Jews, The Reawakening: The Re-emergence of Jews after 500 Years of Spanish-Portuguese Catholic Persecution (2017); and the story of my friend Eddie Bielawski's family survival in Poland, Invisible Jews: Surviving the Holocaust in Poland (2017). That is 11 books self-published in 8 years. I was also a co-editor of Iberian New Christians and their Descendants published by Cambridge Scholars Publishers (2019). My latest books are Unsung Heroes of Jewish History (2021) as well as a second volume with the same title (2023) published with the support of the Davis Family Foundation For further details see entries below. (For my scientific publications, see under Science). For my book, The Revolution In Science in America in the Twentieth Century, (2024) see below.
The Revolution in Science in America in the Twentieth Century: published by Nova Science Press, 8/24. America was the leader in industrial development and applied research at the beginning of the twentieth century. However, the Federal Government felt it was inappropriate to spend the people’s tax money to support basic research without any specific application in mind. It took a revolution in American science to convince the government that basic research aligned with the national interest. The approach of this book is to relate how the knowledge and use of science evolved in the United States from 1900 to the post-World War II era. Finally, this resulted in the support of basic research by government agencies, which ushered in a blossoming of scientific developments that have materially changed people’s lives and made the US a superpower of science.
For a video of my presentation at the book launch party at the Chemistry Dept. at BGU on Sept 11, 2024 go to: https://youtu.be/vLpRGtszYPE?feature=shared
Unsung Heroes of Jewish History, 2021. For centuries, Jews have struggled to survive under cruel and often tragic circumstances. And for centuries, our common ancestors have given their lives so that we, today, can live simply and unburdened. This book fills a niche by describing 53 individuals who have made great contributions to Jewish history and survival but are hardly known or remain obscure. Their unsung heroics are the stuff of fiction, and there are many such amazing and entertaining stories.
The second volume of Unsung Heroes of Jewish History, 2023. with a compendium of 64 entirely new memorable individual bios on Amazon in paperback and Kindle versions. It includes a special section of Jewish soldier Heroes of WWII from the Allied armies.
Iberian New Christians and Their Descendants, 2019. Edited by Abraham Gross, Adina Moryosef and Jack Cohen, published by Cambridge Scholars Publishers
Here is the Publisher's blurb for the book: This ground-breaking volume explores the relatively new academic field of Bnei Anousim studies (also referred to as descendants of New Christians, Conversos, or Marranos), whose Jewish ancestors in Iberia were forcibly converted to Catholicism from 1391 through the fifteenth century. Chronologically, this book focuses on the eighteenth century, a later period of Inquisition activity marked by the Portuguese Inquisition's relentless attacks against the Jewish "heresy" and the resultant mass exodus of New Christians from Portugal to Brazil. Several chapters concern the contemporary phenomenon of descendants of these New Christians seeking their Jewish roots. Yet, among a population that has retained almost no memory of their origins, how authentic are their Jewish roots? After the passage of hundreds of years, how much of what they perceive as "Jewish" is truly a lost Sefardi heritage? This volume addresses these questions from the perspectives of history, demography, genealogy, anthropology, and genetics.
The Reawakening: The Re-emergence of Jews after 500 Years of Spanish-Portuguese Catholic Persecution, 2017. Astonishingly, there are millions of people in the world today who retain remnants of Jewish traditions after as long as 500 years, but are often completely unaware of their Jewish origins. They are descendants of those Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity mostly during the period 1391-1492 in Spain and during the mass forced-conversion during 1497 in Portugal. They were known as conversos or New Christians or pejoratively as marranos. In Hebrew they are known as Anousim (coerced) and their contemporary descendants are known as Bnei Anousim. This book tells the personal stories of such people who have remerged as Jews, most of whom are known personally to the author.
Life on Planet Alz, 2017. This is a true story about coping with my beloved wife’s devastating diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the terrible scourge of our age. In general, people are living longer and diseases of the aged are becoming more prevalent. The major neurological disease of the aged is in fact AD. There have been many excellent books and descriptions of AD and its ravages upon the minds and lives of people, so why write another account? Whenever a person is diagnosed with AD, their spouse automatically becomes their primary carer and unwittingly also becomes a prisoner of the disease.
Invisible Jews: Surviving the Holocaust in Poland, 2017: From the Preface by Eddie Bielowki: No one who wasn’t there can understand what it was like. No-one who hasn’t experienced gnawing hunger, not for hours or days but for months, can understand what it was like to survive under those conditions. Nor to survive a Polish winter in a barn or in an underground bunker with no heat with only straw and a few rags to keep you from freezing to death. No-one who hasn’t sat for days in the same position, not able to move for fear of making a noise, the tiniest of noises. No-one who hasn’t experienced it can know what it was like as a child not to be able to play or even to cry. Throughout the whole three years, from the time in 1941 when the Nazis started the deportations and the mass killings, when we began to hide, until 1944 when we were liberated by the Russians, no one can understand what it was like to become invisible, to become invisible Jews.
Of Gods and Lemurs, 2015. I found myself writing two quite distinct works at the same time. One was on my views about being a Jewish atheist, based partly on lectures that I had given over the years at our English speaking club in Netanya. I called this “The Tolerant Atheist,” which is a work of non-fiction. The other was a story based on a true and disturbing incident that happened to me. Once I stumbled innocently into a family quarrel that had been going on for 20 or more years, and later when I learned of the origin of that situation, I decided to write a story based on it. Somehow that also became intertwined with my fascination for the lemurs of Madagascar, which led to my writing the fictional story “Of Gods and Lemurs.” During that period I had visited Portugal with an organized group to see sites of Jewish heritage and I had written a journal of my trip. I had also written a short story based on the name of the city of “Phoenix” and the redemption of a woman who had been trapped into a life of drugs and sex.
Humorous Husbandry, 2016. Husbandry is often associated with farm work, messing around in mud or pulling udders. I prefer to take the origin of the word as what a husband does. Of course, in the modern world there is not supposed to be any difference between the sexes, we are all equal. But, let’s be real, when things go wrong or break down, it’s the man’s job to deal with it. On the other hand, I have no problem if on occasion the lady of the house gives up and takes matters into her own hands. Either gender can enjoy the humorous incidents that happen in real life - floods, appliance failures, infestations, and the other daily little things in life that are sent to try us. So here from my daily blog, IsBlog (from 2000-2015) (www.jackscohen.wordpress.com) is a collection of those posts that detail the daily amusements that happen unbidden that make life so intense and do-it-yourself (diy) hints to deal with them in the easiest and cheapest way possible. But, I accept no responsibility for anything that happens, slips, grazes or electric shocks.
Zionism: A Love Story, 2015. This is the remarkable true story of a young Anglo-Chilean Christian who went to England to get an education, fell in love with a Jewish girl, then fell in love with socialist Zionism and ended up living on a kibbutz in Israel. After many years his children became ultra-Orthodox Jews (haredim) and finally the story has a very unusual twist. The book is based on the memoirs of this individual, who prefers to remain anonymous.
Antisense, 2014, is a story of scientific discovery and intrigue, including the human interactions that accompany this potentially significant anti-AIDS and anti-cancer project. Technically “Antisense” refers to the non-coding strand of DNA, but more specifically it denotes the use of small pieces of DNA or oligo-nucleotides used as “genetic drugs.” The action takes place at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) the largest biomedical research center in the world and provides a glimpse into the struggles for turf and advantage in the scientific world. The story includes a visit to Academgorodok in the former Soviet Union, as well as an encounter with the CIA. In addition four other stories are included: “Ulpan,” a story of murder in an intensive Hebrew language school; “The Perfect Spy,” a Jewish boy who goes to England to have plastic surgery in the 1930s and becomes the perfect spy; “Jutland,” a voyage of discovery by an American actor into his mother’s past; “Meningioma,” how a benign growth on the optic nerve and its removal can change a person’s vision and life.
Confessions of a Jewish Activist, 2010. This work describes my activities in the Soviet Jewry movement, from the time I was arrested in Washington DC in 1970 for organizing an anti-French demonstration, to when I went to London and was briefed by a secret underground Jewish group, my visit to Moscow in 1972 where I met refuseniks, and the role I played in the huge anti-Brezhnev demonstration in Washington DC in 1973. I also added several interesting stories, including a tour of Sinai before it was returned to Egypt and another is a humorous account of "How to murder your mother-in-law," for any frustrated son-in-law.
Trove, 2009. The format of the novella, the long short story or the short novel, has been largely forgotten in modern times. The length of novels seems to have grown with time, maybe because that is the best way to make more money. But, fewer and fewer people are actually reading, rather than logging on and internet surfing. My theory is that to get people to read one must shorten the format and reduce the content in order to keep pace with the reduced attention span that people have nowadays. Either literature connects with the audience or it will go the way of the dodo and the plastic record. Here are some modest examples of novellas, if you think they should be expanded, you can do so yourself.
Discovering America, 2009. The first story in this collection of short stories is entitled “Discovering America, ”because I arrived in Boston on Columbus Day, 1966. As such it represents a brief continuation of my story, told in my autobiographical novel “Amanuensis.” There is no common theme to these stories, they include events that take place in America and Israel and in places as far apart as India and Norway. They include stories of sex and devotion, of love and anger. Their only common factor is that they sprang, often uninvited, from my brain
Amanuensis, 2009. This is a review of Amanuensis by Myra Sklarew, Prof. Emerita of Literature, American University, Washington DC, USA; It is compelling from the first moment to the last. Thank you for sharing it with me. What a remarkable father! What a hugely powerful model for his son. And what a great distance his son traveled---from a world of enormous hardship and pain to a life of learning and contributing. You have written about a chapter in our history that is scarcely known and therefore makes a great contribution to the full story of our people. The book deserves a wider audience. Your writing is vivid, immediate, and powerful.
This is a review by Sarah Shapiro, author of "Wish I Were Here," and editor of "All of Our Lives: An Anthology of Contemporary Jewish Writing; "Amanuensis" is a wonderfully entertaining, touching, funny story of a young man's calamitous pilgrimage through the wild, wild world in earnest search of...he knows not what. At once utterly raw and artfully crafted, Jack Cohen's writing voice rings true.