Bern Cohen

Bern Cohen is an American actor and educator who grew up in the Al Smith Projects in Manhattan's Chinatown and began acting professionally in New York while a student at Adelphi University. He left acting to work in the city's schools, teaching fourth grade and remedial reading and later serving as a district director of instruction for the New York City school system, and he wrote three college textbooks, on school evaluation, race relations and bilingual education. After taking early retirement he returned to acting, studying with Penny Templeton and Ruth Nerkin, and he created the part of Morris Bober in a stage version of Bernard Malamud's The Assistant at the Turtle Shell Theater. He has appeared in off-Broadway shows and 15 films, among them Rebbe Horowitz in Holy Rollers (2010), a Sundance Festival selection, 27 Dresses (2008) with Katherine Heigl, Tickling Leo with Eli Wallach, Fallen Star, formerly Goyband, with Tovah Feldshuh, and Brooklyn Rules with Alec Baldwin.