David Cohen, seen here at a Capitol Hill hearing on Iran sanctions in 2011, was recently named to the No. 2 position at the Central Intelligence Agency. (Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images)/JTA
David Cohens path to second in command at the Central Intelligence Agency is, in many respects, a typical one in Washington.
A seasoned Ivy League lawyer who began his career defending the right of religious groups to display menorahs on government property, Cohen was the Obama administrations top Iran sanctions official as the Treasury Departments undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
But in other respects, the 51-year-old Cohens ascent to deputy director is less typical.
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 fromtheir jobs following home raids and round-the-clock surveillance.
Two federal employees Adam Ciralsky, a CIA lawyer who was investigated in 1999, and David Tenenbaum, a civilian army engineer whose home was raided by the FBI in 1997 uncovered evidence that they were targeted because they were Jewish.
Ciralsky learned that his distant relationship to Israels first and long dead 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 performing 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. Tenenbaums case is ongoing.
Jewish leaders said those incidents, along with the most notorious case of a Jewish government career run aground the Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for passing on state secrets to Israel 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 that complaints to his organization of bias against Jews in government have diminished nearly to zero in recent years.
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As David Cohen becomes CIAs No. 2, Jews appear to have smoother sailing at security agencies