Funeral services were held here today for the late Elias Tobenkin, author, journalist and one-time Moscow correspondent for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, who died at his home, aged 81.
Born in Russia, Mr. Tobenkin was brought by his family to the United States as a boy. He studied at the University of Wisconsin, receiving bachelor’s and master’s degrees there, and began his newspaper career on the Milwaukee Free Press in 1906. The following year, he joined the Chicago Tribune’s Sunday staff as a feature writer. In 1912, he became an editorial writer for that newspaper. Later, he joined the staff of the New York Herald Tribune. In the early thirties, he covered the Soviet Union for the JTA for a year.
Mr. Tobenkin was the author of many books, both fiction and nonfiction. They included “Witte Arrives,” “The House of Conrad,” “The Road,” “God of Might,” “In the Dark,” “Stalin’s Ladder,” “City of Friends,” and “The Peoples Want Peace.” Shortly before his death he had completed work on a new novel, “The Son.”
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.
