Maurice Bisgyer, who as executive vice-president of B’nai B’rith for 27 years had helped direct the worldwide Jewish service organization during its era of greatest growth, died this morning at the age of 75. He had been hospitalized for six weeks following a stroke.
Funeral services will be held Tuesday afternoon at Adas Israel Congregation here. The eulogy will be by Rabbi Stanley Rabinowitz, spiritual leader of the congregation. Interment will be at the Congregation cemetery.
Mr. Bisgyer was a pioneer in Jewish social service work beginning his 45-year career in 1919. He was one of a then handful of specialists that has since expanded into a large and widespread Jewish community “civil service.” He became B’nai B’rith’s chief administrative officer in 1937.
David M. Blumberg, international president of B’nai B’rith, said today that Mr. Bisgyer’s career, “spanning the era of both Jewish cataclysm and triumph–the Holocaust and the rebirth of Jewish statehood–and the maturing of a native-born American Jewry, was a close-up seat to Jewish history in the making. He helped make much of that history too.”
Mr. Bisgyer’s assignments took him to all parts of the world. He participated in meetings with many leaders of government and with Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI on Issues affecting the Jewish community. He was a member of the Ad Hoc Jewish delegation in 1945 at San Francisco where the United Nations Charter was prepared and ratified.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
