Marc Turkow, former Secretary General of the Latin American Jewish Congress and an architect of the World Jewish Congress constituency in Latin America, died in Buenos Aires on April 28 at the age of 79, it was reported here today by the World Jewish Congress. Born in Warsaw, Turkow was a prominent Yiddish editor and journalist in that city. He was co-editor of the distinguished Yiddish daily, Moment, and played a leading role in the fight against anti-Semitism in Poland and against Nazism. He was the general secretary of the Anti-Hitler Committee in Poland. In 1933 he attended the Second Preparatory Conference of the WJCongress in Geneva as a representative of the United Committee of Jewish Delegations in Poland.
Turkow escaped from Poland before the Nazi occupation and settled in Argentina in 1939. In 1946 he became director of HIAS in Argentina and in 1954 he became the Latin American representative of the WJCongress. In 1959 he became the director of the South American branch of the WJCongress.
He helped considerably to build the whole network of WJCongress affiliated communities in Latin America and was for many years the embodiment of the Congress there. He made a major contribution to all fields of WJCongress endeavor. Turkow was the creator of the Popular Jewish Library and of O Jl, a Latin American Jewish Congress Spanish-language information bulletin which has become a vital link between the Jewish communities of Latin America. He was active in the Zionist movement and an extremely popular speaker.
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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.
