Looking Back

From the William Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit History 

accessible at www.djnfoundation.org

118 | MAY 19 • 2022 

‘The UP’s Jewish Soul’
I 

recently wrote about Holocaust education 
in Michigan. While researching this topic 
in the William Davidson Digital Archive 
of Jewish Detroit History, I ran across the 
name of a Holocaust educator that you may 
not know: William L. Cohodas, known to all 
as “Bill,
” did not have a degree in Holocaust 
studies, but he left his mark on this field of 
study in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, or the 
“UP
.
” As the JN stated in its July 
21, 2016, issue, Cohodas was 
“The UP’s Jewish Soul.
” 
For more than 100 years, 
Jews have lived in the UP
. 
Indeed, the first known Jew in 
Michigan, Ezekiel Solomon, 
was a fur trader who moved to 
Michilimackinac (Mackinaw 
City today) in 1761 and traded in the UP area. 
Once copper and iron mining began in the 
1840s, and lumbering in the 1870s, thousands 
of migrants began to populate the UP
. And 
like elsewhere in America, Jewish peddlers 
and storekeepers soon followed the miners 
and lumberjacks. 
In 1889, the Jewish population in Hancock, 
Mich., was large enough to establish the UP’s 
first congregation. Temple Jacob still stands 
today as the oldest synagogue in the UP
.
Cohodas was born in 1914, in Menominee, 
the southern-most tip of the UP. Sadly, his 
mother died when Cohodas was 6 years 
old, and his father sent him to live with his 
grandmother in Ishpeming. Cohodas would 
become one of the city’s most prominent 
businessmen and a civic leader. For example, 
he was a supporter of such UP institutions as 
Northern Michigan University (NMU), the 
Bay Cliff Health Camp for children with chal-
lenges and the Ishpeming-Marquette Cancer 
Society. 
Along the way, Cohodas married his 
beloved Lois (nee Wenk) in 1939.
Cohodas’ Jewish heritage was, how-
ever, always in the forefront of his life. 
He co-founded Temple Beth Sholom in 
Ishpeming in 1953 (Beth Sholom moved to 
Marquette a few years ago). Cohodas was a 

staunch supporter of Israel. He was a board 
member of the American Friends of Hebrew 
University and, as an amateur archaeologist, 
made many trips to Israel to visit the sites of 
new discoveries.
Perhaps the greatest impact that Cohodas 
had upon the UP was in the field of Holocaust 
studies. He believed that the lessons of 
the Holocaust were universal. To this end, 
Cohodas introduced Holocaust education to 
UP schools, funded a Holocaust Information 
Center at NMU and 
sponsored an Interfaith 
Holocaust Memorial 
Service that has been held 
for nearly 50 years in 
Marquette. 
I particularly liked 
a story from April 20, 
2001, JN, that demon-
strated the legacy of 
Cohodas. It is about 
a display that sev-
enth-graders Brandi 
Barens and Erica 
White created for a 
Holocaust Memorial 
Day at the Ishpeming 
Middle School. 
Cohodas passed away in San Antonio, 
Texas, at the age of 101 in 2016 (July 21, 
2016). Shortly after, Michigan enacted 
the Governor’s Council on Genocide and 
Holocaust Education (Oct. 27, 2016, JN). Bill 
would have liked this.
This week’s JN is a big one and one of our 
favorite issues of the year. We honor our 
Jewish community graduates and, in a new 
feature, the JN’s “Educators of the Year.
” Mazel 
tov to all of them.
I thought this is an appro-
priate issue for the story of 
Bill Cohodas, “The Jewish 
Soul of UP
.
” He is missed. 

Want to learn more? Go to the DJN 
Foundation archives, available for 
free at www.djnfoundation.org.

Mike Smith
Alene and 
Graham Landau 
Archivist Chair