Funeral services will be held tomorrow for Ossip J. Walinsky, a leader in the trade union and Zionist movements and in Jewish communal affairs, who died Sunday at Beth Israel Hospital at the age of 86. He was born in Grodno, Lithuania, where he was active in the labor movement, and came to this country in 1912 where he became an organizer and founder of the international Leather Goods, Plastics and Novelty Workers Union. He was elected president in 1951 and retired from that post in 1957.
During his long career as a unionist Mr. Walinsky was a founder of the Women’s Trade Union and early in his career helped organize the joint board of local unions affiliated with the international Ladies Garment Workers Union. As a communal leader he served on the national board of the Workmen’s Circle in this country and helped organize it in London before coming to the U.S.
He was also a founding member of the United Jewish Appeal, a co-founder of the World ORT Union and the Hias Council of Organizations, a director of YIVO, president of the fraternal division for the Israel Bond Organization, and chairman of the Bet Hatfuzot Community Center at Tel Aviv University.
Mr. Walinsky was also a member of the board of directors of the National Committee for Labor Israel and was one of the first American Jewish labor leaders to respond to the labor movement in Palestine. He presided at the Congress for Labor Palestine in 1918 in New York and was one of the first to respond to an appeal by David Ben-Gurion to establish the Histadrut campaign and was an active leader of that campaign for 50 years. He was also a leader of the Labor Zionist movement.
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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.
