OUR COMMUNITY

A

vern Cohn was, simply, a giant in many ways. 
Cohn, who was a federal judge in Detroit for more 
than 40 years and presided over nationally famous 
cases, including the intermittent windshield wiper saga that 
was made into a movie and two landmark free speech rulings, 
was a legend in the legal and political as well as the Jewish 
communities.
He was a prolific writer on legal issues, as well as a highly 
accomplished amateur historian. He was a tremendous philan-
thropist whose philanthropy was too little recognized because 
he seldom sought recognition for the good that he did.
Avern Cohn was many things but being Jewish was central to 
them all. “My Jewish values, the values of compassion and the 
need to seek justice, inform the way I see the world and the law,” 
he said.

There were, he often observed, judges who just happened to 
be Jewish, and those who were truly Jewish. While Avern Cohn 
had friends of every variety, there was never any doubt which he 
was.
Cohn was, indeed, a huge personality with a volatile temper. 
He could be, at any moment, brilliant and caring or cranky, even 
irascible. Many a lawyer who practiced in his courtroom, espe-
cially those who were ill-prepared, got a high-decibel “verbal 
spanking,” in the words of his close friend Eugene Driker, that 
they never forgot.
But many a frightened defendant found that he was a judge 
with a heart. Nada Nadim Prouty, a native of Lebanon and a 
naturalized citizen, served in both the FBI and CIA before the 
government accused her of a host of crimes including natural-
ization fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

The life and legacy of Judge Avern Cohn, 1924-2022.
A Titan of the Court

JACK LESSENBERRY SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

12 | FEBRUARY 17 • 2022 

Judge Avern 
Cohn in his 
chambers. 
chambers

