Sigma Alpha Epsilon logo. Photo: Kansas State University.

The first Jewish president of one of the largest fraternities in the United States made headlines recently for eliminating initiation practices that were linked to hazing deaths, Bloomberg reported recently.

Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s national president Bradley Cohen announced in early March an end to the group’s tradition of pledging, a months-long initiation process where recruits sometimes experience brutal hazing. SAE became one of only a handful of 75 national fraternities to eliminate the practice.

The decision was made the same day JP Morgan Chase & Co. stopped managing SAE funds, saying it was concerned about the fraternity’s bad publicity stemming from 10 member deaths since 2006.

Cohen’s ascension to his position is notable as SAE used to limit membership to “members of the Caucasian race” without a parent who was a “full-blooded Jew,” according to a 1903 book of rituals, Bloomberg said.

Cohen referred to his heritage in making the case for change at the fraternity. “Holding the black volume aloft, Cohen read that passage to his audience at the University of La Verne. When SAE renounced racism and anti-Semitism in 1952, he reminded the crowd, it faced the same complaints that change would ruin the fraternity that traditionalists now make about the pledging ban,” Bloomberg said.