Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Steven M. Cohen Resigns Following Sexual Misconduct Allegations

One of America’s leading Jewish sociologists has resigned from a Reform Jewish seminary amid sexual misconduct allegations.

The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion announced Wednesday that professor Steven M. Cohen had resigned. The college had opened a Title IX investigation against Cohen after several women accused him of sexual misconduct.

The allegations span decades and come from women who have worked with Cohen or associated professionally with him, as detailed an investigative article by The New York Jewish Week. They include inappropriate touching and grabbing, sexual propositions and advances, and inappropriate sexual remarks.

Five women in the article said Cohen sexually harassed them, while three others accused him of other kinds of sexual misconduct. He didn’t dispute some of the alleged conduct.

Cohen is also the director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive, an electronic database based at Stanford University.

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.