Dr. Judd L. Teller, Author, Social Historian, Lecturer, Dies at 59

Dr. Judd L. Teller, director of the Institute for Policy Planning and Research of the Synagogue Council of America, died yesterday at the age of 59. Funeral services will be held tomorrow. A noted author, lecturer and social historian and an expert on Jewish communal affairs, Dr. Teller was born in Tarnopol, Austria, and came to this country in 1921. He received his undergraduate degree at City College, and his Masters and Doctorate degrees at Columbia University in psychology.

Dr. Teller had written extensively on Jewish affairs, here and abroad. His latest book was “Strangers and Natives. The Evolution of the American Jew from 1921 to the Present.” His other books included “Scapegoat of Revolution.” which deals with the effects of social revolution on Jews from the Reformation through the Communist revolution in Russia, “The Kremlin, the Jews and the Middle East,” and “The Jews: Biography of a People.”

He was Atran Lecturer at Yeshiva University and consultant on Soviet affairs to a Pentagon research project at American University. He held numerous professional posts in the Jewish community including political secretary of the World Zionist Organization, consultant to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and on Jewish Claims against Austria, and first secretary of the Presidents’ Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations and of the Conference of Jewish Organizations.

Dr. Teller had traveled on governmental and foundation assignments in Europe, Asia, Africa, which provided him with an opportunity to study Jewish conditions first hand. He had contributed to leading journals and newspapers, among them Commentary, Midstream, Middle East Journal, The New York Herald Tribune Syndicate, The Christian Science Monitor. New Republic, The Nation. The Journal of Jewish Social Studies.