Funeral services will be held here today for Rabbi David Feuerwerker, an eminent scholar and spiritual leader of French-speaking Jews in North America, who died of a heart attack Friday at the age of 68. He will be buried in Israel.
Messages of sympathy from Pope John Paul II, French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing and from France’s Jewish community poured into Montreal over the weekend. The Swiss-born Feuerwerker was a war hero.
During World War II he was Chief Chaplain for the French Armed Forces of the Resistance Movement. His decorations included the French Legion of Honor, the Croix de Guerre and six citations for bravery. He was the recipient of the Grand Prix of the French Academy for his monumental work entitled “The Emancipation of the Jews in France,” and the humanitarian Grand Prix from the French Senate.
In 1966, after serving as a professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, he immigrated to Canada and later taught Judaism at the University of Montreal. According to Jewish tradition he was recognized as one of the 36 “Pillars of Justice” in the world. (By Michael Soloman).
There will be no Daily News Bulletin dated Friday, July 4 because of Independence Day, a postal holiday.
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