August 4, 2016

Rose Cohen

Rose Cohen was born Rose Wolfe in Springs, South Africa, and grew up in Bulawayo. Her parents were both immigrants who had fled Europe. Her mother came from a small town near Vilna in Lithuania, and her father was born in Austria near Auschwitz. As a young man, sensing danger ahead, her father left with his family, moving through Germany and Trieste, Italy, to South America and then South Africa, before settling in Rhodesia because of quotas on Jewish immigration. Her mother made a similar journey by ship to Cape Town and then to Salisbury, where she met and married Rose's father. He died in 1960 and, at his request, was reburied in Jerusalem.

Rose grew up in a vibrant Jewish community in Bulawayo that numbered in the thousands at its peak. As a child she attended Heder and a regular school, took part in a Zionist youth movement, and enjoyed a rich communal social life. She trained at a teachers training college in Cape Town, where her husband attended medical school. Their eldest son, Joel, was born in Bulawayo, and their other children, Ari and Tanya, were born in Cape Town. In 1977, largely for political reasons and professional opportunity, the family emigrated to the United States when her husband was recruited to a university position.

The Cohens first lived in Memphis, then moved through Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Cleveland before her husband joined a medical practice in Dallas and later opened his own office specializing in reproductive endocrinology. In Dallas, Rose taught, including work with the Solomon chapter, and the family joined synagogues and became active in Jewish life. Shabbat remained central to their household, and Israel is deeply important to the family, with many relatives living there. Rose treasures the extraordinary closeness of the Bulawayo Jewish community and has stayed in touch with lifelong friends around the world, while remaining grateful and proud to have made a life in the United States.

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