Julius Dresner, a life-time Zionist, Jewish journalist and former Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent, died here today in a Rome clinic at the age of 72. Funeral services will be held Thursday in the Jewish section of Rome’s municipal cemetery.
Born on March 26, 1911, in Podvoloshiska, a town on the Russian-Polish border, Dresner migrated with his family to Germany and then to Yugoslavia from which he fled, during World War II, to Italy. There he was placed in internment at Asti. During the war, he led a clandestine existence in Rome under a false name.
After the Allies liberated Italy, Dresner emigrated to Israel but later returned to Italy where he worked as a director of the American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Rome before becoming a full-time correspondent, first for the JTA, and later for Davar, the Israeli daily; the Swiss News Agency SPK-Berne; and for Aufbau, a Jewish newspaper printed in German in New York City.
Dresner was an active and respected member of the Associazione Della Stampa Estera (Foreign Press Association). He was elected repeatedly to the association’s executive board throughout his 21 years of membership. Friends said his warmth, intelligence and old world wisdom made him a beloved figure on the Rome correspondents’ scene.
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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.
