{"id":60965,"date":"2025-12-14T21:25:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T21:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/60965\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T21:25:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T21:25:06","slug":"gov-josh-shapiro-gives-call-to-action-at-annual-pennsylvania-society-dinner-honoring-david-l-cohen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/60965\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov. Josh Shapiro gives call to action at annual Pennsylvania Society dinner honoring David L. Cohen"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 The first time Gov. Josh Shapiro<\/a> attended the glitzy Pennsylvania Society dinner in midtown Manhattan, he was a young lawmaker invited by David L. Cohen.<\/p>\n

Fifteen years later, Shapiro again sat front and center with Cohen, on Saturday night in New York City\u2019s Waldorf Astoria hotel. The governor and former U.S. ambassador to Canada celebrated Cohen\u2019s receipt of a gold medal award, which has typically been given to the likes of former presidents, prominent philanthropists, and influential businesspeople.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still remember that feeling of sitting here, in this storied hotel, inspired not just by this grand, historic room, but most especially by the people in it. I just felt honored to be here,\u201d Shapiro recalled in his remarks Saturday night to the 127th annual Pennsylvania Society dinner. \u201cWe\u2019ve come full circle.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania Society, which began in the Waldorf Astoria in 1899 by wealthy Pennsylvania natives who were living in New York and hoping to effect change in their home state, returned Saturday to the iconic hotel for the first time in eight years to honor Cohen for his lifetime of achievement and contributions to Pennsylvania. <\/p>\n

The $1,000-per-plate dinner closed out the Pennsylvania Society weekend in New York City, where the state\u2019s political elite \u2014 from local lawmakers to federal officials, to university presidents and top executives \u2014 travel to party, fundraise, and schmooze across Midtown Manhattan, with the prescripted goal of making Pennsylvania better.<\/p>\n

Each of the approximately 800 attendees at Saturday night\u2019s dinner was served filet mignon as their entree, and a cherry French pastry for dessert. The candlelit tables in the grand ballroom had an elaborate calla lily centerpiece \u2014 a flower often symbolizing resurrection or rebirth, as the society had its homecoming following years away while the hotel was closed for renovations.<\/p>\n

Shapiro, who has delivered remarks to the Pennsylvania Society dinner each year of his first term as governor, focused on the polarization of the moment. He said the antidote that Pennsylvanians want is for top officials to work together and show the good that government can achieve to make peoples\u2019 lives better. <\/p>\n

\u201cLet us be inspired by that spirit and take the bonds we form tonight back home to our cities, towns, and farmlands, and continue to find ways to come together, make progress, and create hope,\u201d Shapiro said.<\/p>\n

Shapiro also thanked the members of the society for their support following an attempt on his life by a man who later pleaded guilty tosetting fires in the governor\u2019s residence while he and his family slept inside.<\/p>\n

\u00bb READ MORE: Cody Balmer, who set fire to Gov. Josh Shapiro\u2019s mansion, pleads guilty to attempted murder<\/a><\/p>\n

Cohen was honored as a Philadelphia stalwart whose long career includes stints as an executive at Comcast, chair of the University of Pennsylvania<\/a>\u2019s Board of Trustees, and five years as Ed Rendell\u2019s chief of staff during his mayorship. <\/p>\n

He was recognized in a prerecorded video featuring praise from former U.S. Sens. Pat Toomey and Bob Casey<\/a>, former U.S. Ambassador to Germany and former University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann, and Rendell, and others the 70-year-old Cohen has worked with throughout his career.<\/p>\n

Rendell attended the dinner with his ex-wife and former first lady of Pennsylvania Marjorie \u201cMidge\u201d Rendell. In his prerecorded remarks, Rendell credited Cohen, his former chief of staff, as the true governor and mayor of Philadelphia for all of his work behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

Cohen, who continues his work to promote the relationship between the U.S. and Canada since his return to Philadelphia this year, began his remarks following his introduction with a joke: \u201cIt\u2019s sort of nice to hear a preview of your obituary,\u201d he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

Cohen gave an impassioned speech defending democracy and recognizing America\u2019s position in the world, even as polarization reaches a fever pitch in the country. He credited the society as a place where America\u2019s founding tenets are achieved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese Pennsylvania Society principles represent what the United States is supposed to stand for as a country, a promoter and defender of democratic values, values that have special residence in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, where our country was born almost 250 years ago,\u201d Cohen said.<\/p>\n

And Cohen had a dispatch from his years as an ambassador, followed by a call to action: \u201cFrom our comfortable perch in Pennsylvania, I don\u2019t think we always appreciate what we have here in the United States and the critical role that America plays on the global stage in promoting democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 The first time Gov. Josh Shapiro attended the glitzy Pennsylvania Society dinner in midtown Manhattan,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[32964,28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-60965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-josh-shapiro-pennsylvania-society-david-cohen","9":"tag-pennsylvania","10":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","11":"tag-pennsylvania-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}