Maurice Bisgyer, for 27 years the executive vice-president of B’nai B’rith, will retire on December 31, B’nai B’rith announced today on the eve of the organization’s annual board of governors meeting. Mr. Bisgyer is 67 years of age.
During Mr. Bisgyer’s tenure as key administrator, the 121-year-old B’nai B’rith achieved its greatest period of growth with membership rising from 46,000 to its present 480,000. An annual budget for national affairs that was $110,000 in 1937–the year Mr. Bisgyer became operating head–now exceeds $7,000,000. It was also under Mr. Bisgyer’s management that the organization built its modern national headquarters in Washington housing a staff of 147.
Mr. Bisgyer terminates 45 years as a leading personality in the Jewish community’s “civil service.” He started in 1919 as executive director of the Jewish Education Alliance in Baltimore. As B’nai B’rith executive, Mr. Bistyer was appointed by a number of Presidents of the United States to various commissions. During the Hitler era, he initiated a crash program to furnish affidavits of support to facilitate migration and entry of Jewish refugees.
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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.
