September 26: Paul Cowan, 48

Paul Cowan, staff writer for the Village Voice whose five books included The Tribes of America and the very influential memoir about the reclamation of Jewish identity, An Orphan in History, died on this date in 1988 at age 48. Cowan came from an aristocratic (see discussion of this word choice below), highly assimilated American Jewish family — his father the president of CBS, his mother from the family that owned the Spiegel Catalogue. His voyage of Jewish self-discovery launched many baby-boomer Jews on theirs, and his wife Rachel, a convert to Judaism who became a rabbi, has been an important catalyst of contemporary Jewish spiritual renewal through the Nathan Cummings Foundation and her own Institute for Jewish Spirituality. Cowan was also involved in the Peace Corps, the civil rights movement, and the anti-war movement, all of which he chronicled in fluid, honest and personal essays.

“I feel more Jewish. But I feel more American, too.” —Paul Cowan