Jack Cohen

When I die, I wish to come back as a newborn in an orthodox family in Israel. I pray that my new father is a cantor whose ancestors include many orthodox cantors. With God’s blessings, I hope that my parents bring me up to become a cantor, and that God bestows upon me a beautiful voice with the ability to sing Muslim and Christian prayers, as well as Hebrew and Yiddish prayers.

The journey, which culminated with this book, began with my Hebrew School teacher when I was a child. I do not remember her name; but I remember the cookies and cold milk we shared when I was age seven. The treat was a reward for helping her with some tasks. The cookies and cold milk that afternoon were the best I have ever enjoyed.

I prepared for the day I would become a Bar Mitzvah by attending Hebrew school four days a week after public school, to study the Torah, our prayers, our history, Jewish tradition, and rituals.

I graduated Pepperdine University with a degree in Engineering Management, and Lindenwood College with a master’s degree In Business. I taught troubleshooting of complex electronic systems to Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corp technicians making complex systems easy to understand. I taught classes throughout the United States, and in Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The Marines in Vietnam made me an honorary Marine.

In 1986, I become one of the founders of a synagogue in St. Peters, Missouri. I volunteered to teach the half-dozen students that we started with. I continued as a volunteer teacher for twenty-five years. This experience influenced and shaped my life.

For those twenty-five years, teaching was the priority in my life. I planned vacations when school was not in session, and passed up opportunities for paying teaching jobs to continue as a volunteer.

To encourage the students to ask questions and share their thoughts, I researched hundreds of subjects that were not in our structured curriculum or textbooks. I developed and implemented a “Miracles or No Miracles” curriculum to discuss creation, evolution, and life. The material gathered during these twenty-five years of research, to prepare meaningful classes for my students, led to She Is Not Related to Him.

As a founder of our synagogue, and an instructor, I had numerous educational discussions with members of the Christian and Muslim communities. I am highly regarded by the Christian and Muslim communities for these educational discussions. The Jewish Community of St. Louis also honored me with The Unsung Heroes Award in 2011.

She Is Not Related to Him required three years to write. I hope I fulfilled my goal, and written a book described by James McCosh, “The book to read is not one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think.”

I am thankful to Hashem for the blessings He bestowed upon me that brought me to this moment.