David Cohen, appointed deputy director at the Central Intelligence Agency last month by President Barack Obama, is the first Jew to hold such a senior position in the intelligence agency.
A seasoned Ivy League lawyer who began his career defending the right of religious groups to display menorahs on government property, Cohen, 51, was the Obama administration’s top Iran sanctions official as the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
A number of Jews have long alleged that they hit speed bumps in the American security services, their careers in some cases temporarily obstructed over security clearance questions. For others, accusations of espionage based on ties to Israel, however remote, have driven them from their jobs following home raids and round-the-clock surveillance.
Two federal employees — Adam Ciralsky, a CIA lawyer investigated in 1999, and David Tenenbaum, a civilian army engineer whose home the FBI raided in 1997 — uncovered evidence that they were targeted because they were Jewish.
Ciralsky learned that his distant relationship to Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, and the fact that his father had purchased Israel Bonds, were held against him. Tenenbaum was deemed suspicious in part because he spoke Hebrew, even though it was helpful in his official duties as a liaison to Israeli counterparts.
Ciralsky and Tenenbaum each filed suit against their respective agencies, both of which ultimately admitted that the men were victims of religious discrimination. Ciralsky quietly dropped his case in 2012. Tenenbaum’s case is ongoing.
Jewish leaders said those incidents are now fading from memory. In their wake, they said, the outlook for Jews at the highest levels of the American security apparatus are improving.
Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said complaints to his organization of bias against Jews in government have diminished nearly to zero in recent years.
Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Cohen’s appointment shows the government is sensitive to cases of past bias.
“The message from on top is very important,” said Hoenlein, though he cautioned that such messages don’t always trickle down. “It doesn’t necessarily get down to the operatives who make decisions about promotions.” — jta