Funeral services will be held here tomorrow for Mrs. Florence G. Heller, noted philanthropist and president of the National Jewish Welfare Board, who died here yesterday. She was 68. She contributed the funds that made possible the founding, endowing and housing of the Florence G. Heller Graduate School for Advanced Studies in Social Welfare, at Brandeis University, and was a member of the university’s board of trustees.
When she was elected to the top office in the JWB, in 1964, Mrs. Heller became the first woman president of a general, national Jewish organization. She had previously been vice-president of the JWB, chairman of the organization’s Jewish Community Center Services, and the JWB’s representative on the United Nations Conference Group of National Organizations. In 1953, she received the JWB’s Frank L. Weil Award.
Locally, she was one of the original contributors to the Louis A. Weiss Memorial Hospital, where she established a blood bank and an isotope laboratory bearing her name; was on the board of directors of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago; and a member of the board of trustees of Sinai Temple. Nationally, she was active in the United Service Organization, and was a former vice-chairman of the national women’s division of the United Jewish Appeal.
Mrs. Heller was a major contributor also of funds for the construction of a new building for the Jerusalem YMHA. She was a member of the board of the World Federation of YMHA’s and Jewish Community Centers. She was a niece of the late Julius Rosenwald, the noted Jewish philanthropist.
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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.
