FEBRUARY 17 • 2022 | 13

The media labeled her “Jihad Jane,” and she was doubly wor-
ried when she learned her case would be before Judge Cohn, a 
pillar of Detroit’s Jewish community. But after studying the case, 
the judge tore into the government and the media and praised 
her for “rendering extraordinary service to the United States.” 
In the end, Prouty was totally exonerated.
“I was ecstatic that the judge had seen through the smoke to 
the real facts in my case,” she told me. “Judge Cohn was very 
fair. He stood apart from the rest. He had a heart,” she added.
That heart was stilled forever late on Friday, Feb. 4, 2022, 
when Avern Cohn died in Beaumont Hospital after a brief final 
illness, less than six months short of his 98th birthday.

AN AMAZING LIFE
“I am very sad,” said his wife, Lois Pincus Cohn. “This is devas-
tating for all of us. But he had the most amazing life.”
 That he did. Avern Levin Cohn was born on July 23, 1924, at 
the old St. Mary’s Hospital at Clinton and St. Antoine, the first 
child of a young lawyer named Irwin Cohn and his wife, Sadie 
Levin Cohn.
Although he was a lifelong Detroiter, he was born into a world 
which no longer exists. Calvin Coolidge was president; and 
America had less than a third of its present population. Ford 
was still selling Model T’s, open antisemitism was widely accept-

“AVERN COHN WAS A GIANT IN PUBLIC LIFE AND IN THE LIFE OF OUR EXTENDED FAMILY. 
HE HAD A GIANT VOICE, LITERALLY. THE BREADTH OF HIS KNOWLEDGE OF THE ISSUES 
OF THE DAY, OF HISTORY, OF THE LAW WAS OVERWHELMING. HIS CURIOSITY GOBBLED 
UP TOPICS OF AN ASTONISHING VARIETY. HE WAS INTERESTED IN PEOPLE, AND HE 
KEPT UP RELATIONSHIPS WITH ALL MANNER OF COURTHOUSE BUILDING STAFF, 
CLERKS, ATTORNEYS, SCHOLARS AND LEADERS. HIS COMMITMENT TO THE JEWISH 
COMMUNITY WAS SO DEEP AND BROAD THAT HE SEEMED TO HAVE A HAND IN MORE 
THINGS OVER MORE YEARS THAN WAS POSSIBLE FOR A SINGLE PERSON. 
WE DEEPLY MOURN THE PASSING OF OUR BELOVED COUSIN WHOSE VITAL LEGACY 
WILL PERSIST FOR THE AGES.” 

— CONGRESSMAN ANDY LEVIN AND FORMER CONGRESSMAN SANDY LEVIN

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