(Jewish Daily Agency)
Adolf Kraus, civic and welfare leader, for twenty years international president of the Independent Order B’nai Brith, the largest American Jewish fraternal order, died Monday in his sleep. He was seventy-eight years old.
Born in Blowitz, Bohemia (then Austria and now Czechoslovakia) February 26, 1850, he came to the United States at the age of 15. After clerking a few years in small town stores in Ohio, he came to Chicago in 1871, while the city was still in ruins after the great fire. He found a position in a law office, studied for the bar and in 1877 was admitted to practice.
Mr. Kraus took a great interest in local politics, serving on the Board of Education and as Corporation Counsel. For two years he was President of the Board of Education. In 1905 he was a member of the committee of American Jews who conferred at Portsmouth, N. H. with Count Witte, championing the rights of Russian Jews.
Mr. Kraus served as president of the Independent Order B’nai Brith from 1905 to 1925. During his administration the order grew and developed, becoming a power in cultural and welfare work. In 1925 Mr. Kraus resigned from the presidency at the Constitution Grand Lodge convention in Atlantic City, to be succeeded by Alfred M. Cohen of Cincinnati.
In 1927 the B’nai Brith conferred upon Mr. Kraus the Supreme Order of the Covenant, the first officer to receive this honor. On the occasion of his seventieth birthday, Ex-President Taft was one of the speakers at a dinner given in his honor at the Hotel La Salle.
Mr. Kraus is survived by his wife, a daughter and three sons. Funeral services will be held Wednesday at Isalah Temple. Burial will be in Rosehill Cemetery.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
