H EADLINES
Advocate for Elderly
Elias Surut Cohen
Dies at 93
OB ITUARY
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
ELIAS SURUT COHEN of
Wynnewood, an advocate
on behalf of the elderly
and a lawyer who served as
Pennsylvania’s first state
commissioner for aging issues,
died on Nov. 24 at Lankenau
Medical Center from an intes-
tinal ailment. He was 93.

To those who knew him
well, Cohen was “Eli.” To his
sons, Barry and Peter, he was
someone to emulate. And in
one much-publicized incident,
he was referred to as “wild
jackass,” a title that Barry
Cohen disputes but the man
himself was delighted by.

Th e incident came during a
1961 legislative session of the
Pennsylvania Senate, just a few
years into Cohen’s tenure as
state commissioner for aging
issues in the Department of
Public Welfare, aft er he had
earned a reputation as a
forceful promoter of rigorous
standards for nursing home
operators. Sen. Israel Stiefel,
a fellow Philadelphia Jew and
Democrat (and a scholar of the
Bible and Semitic languages)
hurled the epithet at Cohen
during the reading of House
Marcia and Elias Cohen in Arizona
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“A public offi cial should be
fi rm, decent and courteous,”
Stiefel said, according to Th e
Philadelphia Inquirer, “and
these are qualities which Elias
Cohen lacks.” Cohen was
defended by at least one senator,
according to the Inquirer, and
the legislation passed anyway.

Cohen was appointed to
his position as commissioner
on aging in 1959, when he
was just 29. By then, he was
married to Marcia Cohen, who
he met when she was still in
high school in Long Island,
New York. Aft er they married
in 1948, they moved to Camp
Hill. Marcia Cohen recalls
that her husband was voted
“most versatile” in his high
school yearbook, and that
he maintained his notably
wide variety of interests and
abilities throughout his life.

Outside of his work as a public
advocate, lawyer and editor of
Th e Gerontologist, a national
journal on aging, Cohen was
also a leading collector of
antique sheet music, according
to Barry Cohen. He played
guitar, too, and polished the
silver of the Torah ornaments
See Cohen, Page 8
Photo by Claire H. Cohen
JEWISH EXPONENT
DECEMBER 17, 2020
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