Yolande Cohen was born in 1950. She is a historian and professor from Canada who was born in Morocco. Her work studies the history of young people and the history of women. She is also a member of the Moroccan Jewish community known as the Sephardi and studies the history of Moroccan Jews. In the 1990s, she was a politician and the first leader of the Coalition Démocratique–Montréal Écologique political party. She ran for mayor in the 1994 city election. Cohen is a member of the Royal Society of Canada. She has received honors, including being named a Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour and a Knight of the National Order of Québec.

Early life and education

Yolande Cohen was born in Morocco in 1950. She has younger brothers. In 1968, she studied in Paris. After that, she moved to Quebec.

Career

In 1976, Cohen worked as a lecturer in Rimouski, Quebec. That same year, she taught history at the Université du Québec in Montreal. She helped start the group "Vélo Québec, du Regroupement des femmes du Québec et de Montréal écologique." Cohen also taught at Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of California, Los Angeles, the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, and Paris Nanterre University.

She wrote several academic books, including Les jeunes, le Socialisme et la guerre: Histoire des Mouvements de jeunesse en France, Femmes de parole. L’Histoire des Cercles de fermières du Québec, and Femmes philanthropes: Catholiques, Protestantes et Juives dans les Organisations caritatives au Québec. Since February 2012, she has also written blog posts for HuffPost, Quebec edition, on different topics.

In 1994, the Coalition démocratique de Montréal merged with Montréal Écologique to form the Coalition Démocratique–Montréal Écologique, a local political party that existed until 1998. Cohen was the first leader of this group and ran for mayor in the 1994 city election. She also ran for a seat on the city council in the 1998 Montreal municipal election.