Paul Cowan (1940–1988) was a New York-based journalist, staff writer for The Village Voice, and the author of several books, including a memoir of his reconnection to his Jewish roots and a guide to interfaith marriages.
[2] After college, Cowan spent two years in the Peace Corps and in 1970 wrote a book about his experiences in Ecuador, The Making of an Un-American.
[1] He joined the Village Voice as a staff writer and wrote about the civil rights movement, coal miners in Kentucky, poverty-stricken older Jews in New York City, the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez, and Vietnam War protests.
[1] After his parents died in a fire in 1978, Cowan began to investigate his Jewish roots and discovered that his grandparents on his father's side were Orthodox Jews from Lithuania, his family's real name had been Cohen, and his great-great-grandfather had been a rabbi.
In 1987 he published Mixed Blessings: Marriage between Jews and Christians, a book about the challenges of interfaith families.