Funeral services were held yesterday for Dr. Abraham Franzblau, a psychiatrist who was a leader in Reform Jewish education and a founder of the Hebrew Union College (HUC) School for Teachers in New York City. He died last Thursday in Mount Sinai Hospital from a heart ailment. He was 81.
Franzblau served as dean and professor of pastoral psychiatry at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion here from 1935 to 1958. He also was professor of pastoral psychiatry at the Reform institute’s Cincinnati campus from 1931 to 1943.
He served as principal of the HUC School for Teachers from 1923 when he helped start it, until 1931. In 1948, Franzblau helped to organize the HUC School of Sacred Music. He established the Sacred Music Press in 1950 and was a founder of the American Conference of Cantors. He was the author of a number of books and maintained a private practice in psychiatry for many years.
A native New Yorker, Franzblau was graduated from City College in 1921, received a Ph.D. from Columbia University and a medical degree from Cincinnati University’s College of Medicine. He was a resident at Cincinnati Jewish Hospital from 1937 to 1940 and began a long association with Mount Sinai Hospital in 1949 as a lecturer at the Mount Sinai Medical School.
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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.