by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

July 31, 2008

Jewish leaders reacted with a sense of shock and sorrow to the resignation of Neil Cohen, who stepped down as deputy majority speaker of the New Jersey State Assembly on July 28 after allegedly being in possession of child pornography.

The 57-year-old legislator lives in Roselle and shared a legislative office in Union with two fellow Democrats in District 20, State Sen. Ray Lesniak and Assemblyman Joseph Cryan. The district covers Elizabeth, Kenilworth, Roselle, and Union.

Lesniak and Cryan alerted law enforcement after a staff member discovered a photograph of a nude girl, possibly in her early teens or younger, on a printer used by Cohen.

A one-sentence letter of resignation from Cohen, received by the Assembly clerk on Monday, did not offer an explanation.

Cohen, unreachable by reporters, was reported to be under psychiatric care.

Stanley Stone, executive vice president of the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey, said his reaction to Cohen’s resignation was shock.

“It is a very disappointing and embarrassing situation,” he said.

Cohen would occasionally attend Super Sunday, the federation’s annual fund-raiser.

“We certainly tried to involve him, and there were times when he was very helpful in trying to secure us some state grants for our partner agencies, particularly Jewish Family Service,” said Stone. “I had been in his office numerous times in terms of lobbying him and talking to him about issues of concern to the Jewish community.”

Felice Maranz, director of the Central federation’s Jewish Community Relations Council, said she was shocked as well.

“We had a good, productive working relationship with him,” she said. “He successfully got funding for our JFS, he appeared at our rally for Israel in 2006, and he would routinely meet with us. He had a good record on many social policy issues.

“I don’t think he was particularly identified with the Jewish community,” she added, “and I don’t know anything about his level of religious observance.”

Cohen was a cosponsor of a statute designating each April as “Jewish Heritage Month” in New Jersey, and sponsored bills to prevent state pension funds from being invested in overseas firms that do business in Iran and another that would pressure Switzerland to set up a restitution fund for Holocaust survivors’ and victims’ families.

“The bottom line was, Neil is a secular Jew,” said a friend of Cohen’s who requested anonymity. “People had to tell him when the Jewish holidays were.”

“This whole business is a shock,” the friend said. “Why would he print out the picture of a nude girl on an office computer? I understand he never had a home computer.”

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