 His father, Reuben Cohen, was a Russian Jewish immigrant, while his mother, Clara, was of Protestant Irish ancestry; the two owned the Bangor Rye Bread Co. Cohen attended Hebrew school as a child.When he was told that he would have to undergo a conversion ceremony (see Matrilineality in Judaism), however, he decided not to follow through with his Bar Mitzvah.Instead, he followed his mother's example in refusing to convert to Judaism and became a Christian, specifically within the Unitarian Universalist tradition.