Elisheva Cohen (Benjamin)

Elisheva Cohen (Hebrew: אלישבע כהן‎; January 9, 1911 – December 20, 1989) was an Israeli designer and museum curator. In 1977, she won the Israel Prize for her contribution to Israeli design. She was given the Yakir Yerushalayim award in 1989.

Else Elisheva Benjamin Cohen was born in Frankfurt am Main to Heinrich Naftali and Netty (Dulken) Benjamin. Her father was a trader of pearls and precious stones. She had an older brother, Bernhard. She attended a school for Orthodox Jewish girls and later a non-Jewish public high school. She studied art history at the University of Munich and also at the universities of Frankfurt, Zurich, Heidelberg and Marburg. With the rise of Nazism, she was forced to leave school. She left Germany in 1933. She married Chaim Herman Cohn in Strasbourg on August 15, 1933, and they immigrated together to Palestine. The couple settled in Jerusalem, where Chaim opened a law office. They had two children, Eliyahu and Yehudit.

In 1956, after divorcing her husband, Cohen met Mordechai Narkiss, director of the Bezalel National Museum, who asked her to organize the museum's collection of graphics. She introduced the cataloging system that is still in use today. The first exhibition she curated was of Rembrandt’s etchings and drawings of biblical subjects.

In 1960, she spent three months in England and nine in the United States on a grant from The British Council and the Fulbright Foundation. She was involved in planning the new Israel Museum. The Bezalel National Museum became its Art Wing. In 1968,Cohen became Chief Curator for the Arts in addition to Curator of Prints and Drawings.

Upon her retirement, she became the art advisor of the museum, a post she held for five years. In 1977, she was awarded the Israel Prize, and in 1988 she became an Honorary Citizen of Jerusalem (Yakir Yerushalayim). She was involved in transforming the home of Anna Ticho into a branch of the Israel Museum. She was on the Board of Directors of The Israel Museum and chairperson of Israel’s Council of Museums.

She died on December 20, 1989.

see also: Elisheva Cohen