Levi Barent Cohen 1747 - 1808

Financier

Merchant and communal leader

Levi Barent Cohen was the son of a wealthy merchant in Amsterdam. He moved to England with his brother in 1770, and by 1778 he had established a lucrative mercantile and financial business. Cohen was naturalised in 1798. Cohen is often regarded as the founder of the Anglo-Jewish “Cousinhood”, the interrelated groups of wealthy families who dominated Jewish life in England until the Second World War. He was the first president of the Bread, Meat and Coal charity, and of the Jews’ Hospital. He also served as Warden of the Great Synagogue. His daughters contracted distinguished marriages, connecting him with almost all the leading Jewish families in England. His eldest daughter Hannah married Nathan Mayer Rothschild, her younger sister Judith married Sir Moses Montefiore and his third daughter Jessie married Myer Davidson. By the early 20th century virtually every wealthy “old” Jewish family in Britain had married or were related to his descendants.