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APRIL 22, 2021 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
Inculcating a Culture of Kiddush Hashem Baruch Cohen spreads the message that truth and integrity is as satisfying as success BY YOSEF GESSER
Baruch
“Before depositing the check, he photocopied the check and displayed it on his wall as a reminder that he worked with a Yid who was ehrlich with him.”
C. Cohen, a trial attorney and litigator for over three decades in Los Angeles, has dedicated himself to spreading the word of truth and integrity as inspired by our Torah. He conveys that these principles are inspiring in their own right and are synonymous with success – perhaps, even more so than his own impressive professional achievements. Baruch is sought-after as a speaker to students and adults, those in yeshiva and those in the workplace. He also created “29 Rules for the American Orthodox Jew,” in which he details how a frum Jew should conduct himself in the workplace – and in life. Baruch is his clients’ first line of defense and offense in matters of litigation, bankruptcy, or batei din. Born and raised in Far Rockaway, his background is perhaps more rabbinical than professional. His father, Rabbi Dr. Samuel Cohen, headed the Jewish National Fund, and his grandfather, Rabbi Meir Cohen, taught the semicha shiur at Yeshivas Rabbi Yitzchok Elchanan, was a long-time executive of the Agudas Harabonim, and also served as chief rabbi of Asbury Park, New Jersey. Reb Meir’s father, Hagaon Harav Shmuel HaKohen Burstein, was a rav in Shatovah, Russia. Baruch’s mother, a Holocaust survivor, descended from the famed Hager family of the Vizhnitz dynasty and later remarried Rabbi Berel Wein (she was niftar around three years ago). In his young years, Baruch attended Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim, Yeshiva of Far Rockaway, and Adelphia Yeshivah. After marrying his wife, Adina, he learned in kollel at Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim while earning a degree at Queens College at night. “I was planning to go into harbatzas Torah. Then I got the bug to become an attorney,” he shares. But, besides having built a successful law practice, amidst a world in which it seems that yashrus has become an increasingly rare commodity, Baruch has taken a leading role in promoting the imperative for creating a kiddush Hashem with our behavior and speech and avoiding chillul Hashem – a call for integrity and honesty in our lives. “I wear a yarmulke in court and therefore I am a
very visible Jew,” he says. “When you do so, you bear an extra measure of responsibility to be more careful, more courteous, more prudent. Any misstep gets magnified. “As a member of the am hanivchar, the Chosen People, we follow the Torah. We claim to live our lives in consonance with the will of G-d, and we believe we will be answerable to Him in the World to Come. We have to set an example. “Therefore, how could we be anything but scrupulously honest and trustworthy?” Being honest also gives people a certain menuchas ha’nefesh. Baruch knows a lawyer who cheated on his LSAT’s, somehow managed to get accepted to a top-rate law school, and yet, feels his entire career is predicated on fraud and that he never really earned it. “His professional life continued in that direction and so whenever he sees a police car passing with its siren sounding, he imagines they are coming for him. He lives in perpetual fear that he will be caught. That is not a way to live,” Baruch maintains.
Seeing the Problem Firsthand The interest in imparting lessons about ethics evolved in the course of Baruch’s legal career. As a civil litigator, Baruch tries cases before judges and juries and sees firsthand the effect of improper conduct on the secular world. He deals with cases of welfare fraud, construction fraud, slumlord situations, and other areas of perfidy. Sometimes, a litigant tries to justify question-
