Some 2, 000 persons filled the B’nai Jeshurun Synagogue here today at funeral services for Louis Segal, veteran Zionist and labor leader, who died Tuesday at the age of 69. Hundreds of other mourners, who were unable to gain admittance for lack of room, remained outside the synagogue during the rites. (In Israel, plans were announced today for a memorial meeting in Tel Aviv at the end of the Chivah mourning period.)
Ambassador Katriel Katz delivered a message of condolence from Prime Minister Levi Eshkol declaring that “the State of Israel, the Zionist movement, the labor movement and Louis Segal’s myriad friends will for many years feel the absence of his sagacious advice, his innate sensitivity to Jewish need and the warmth of his great human heart.”
Mrs. Rose L. Halprin, chairman of the American section of the Jewish Agency, said in her eulogy at the funeral services that “the Jewish people has lost a devoted and militant worker and the Zionist movement has lost a consecrated worker.”
Eulogies also were delivered by Meyer L. Brown, founder and honorary president of the Farband-Labor Zionist Order; Samuel Bonchek, president of Farband; Jacob Katzman, associate general secretary of Farband; Alex Rose, president of the Hat, Cap and Millinery Workers Union; and Mordecai Strigler, editor of Yiddisher Kempfer, American Labor Zionist organ. Rabbi William Berkowitz officiated.
Messages of condolence received included one from Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, declaring that “the Jewish people and the Zionist movement have lost one of the most devoted and courageous leaders.” Moshe Sharett, chairman of the executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel, said in a message that Segal was a “life-long standard bearer of Labor Zionism, tireless worker and intrepid fighter for the Zionist cause.”
Rabbi Mordecai Kirshblum, president of the Religious Zionists of America, delivered a brief eulogy at the interment at the Farband cemetery in Paramus, N.J.
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.
