David M. Bressler, Moted Social Worker, Dies

David M. Bressler, noted Jewish social worker and executive in many Jewish organizations and institutions of a philantropic and religious nature, died here today at the age of 63. He had been ill for some time.

A vice-chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee, Mr. Bressler was also a member of the executive committee of the American Jewish Committee, the National Refugee Service and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. He was a non-Zionist member of the Council of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and at one time represented the non-Zionists on the Board of the Jewish National Fund. Born in Charlottenburg, Germany, he came to the United States in 1884 and received his education in the City College of New York, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and New York Law School. Although admitted to the bar in 1901, he soon entered social welfare work and became the manager of the Industrial Removal Office.

In 1915 he helped to organize the first national campaign of the American Jewish Relief Committee and became the first secretary of the Joint Distribution Committee. He was sent by the J.D.C. to Europe in 1922 to study the conditions of Jews there and was later appointed chairman of the National Appeal for Jewish War Sufferers. In 1924, with Louis Marshall and Stephen S. Wise, he was chairman of the Emergency Committee for Jewish Refugees. Later he became acting chairman of the New York branch of the United Jewish Campaign. After a second trip to Eastern Europe in 1929, he served as national co-chairman of the Allied Jewish Campaign. Governor Herbert H. Lehman appointed him to the New York State Planning Board in 1934 and in 1937 to the New York State Appeal Board of Unemployment Insurance.