Vermont College Student Found Dead After Going Snowboarding
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — A Jewish student at the University of Vermont who was being reported missing while snowboarding has died.
Brett Cohen, 22, of Needham, Massachusetts, was found in a wooded area near a trail at a ski resort in Vermont on Monday evening, eight hours after he was reported missing by a friend from whom he had been separated while snowboarding.
Cohen, a senior, was partially covered with snow and unresponsive when he was discovered by rescue crews. He was pronounced dead Tuesday morning at UVM Medical Center, according to reports.
Cohen was active in the University of Vermont Hillel. In a post on Facebook Tuesday, the page’s administrator wrote: “Brett came to UVM from Needham, MA and he was one of the first students I met at our Rosh Hashanah (new year) services in 2013. I clearly remember his warmth and his real passion for making the world a better place for everyone, which came through so clearly during some of our conversations and chance encounters on campus these past few years.”
The post announced that during Friday night Shabbat services the group would say Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning, and share their memories of Cohen.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
