Samuel M. Schmidt, Noted Jewish Editor, Dies at Dinner in His Honor

Samuel M. Schmidt, a prominent editor, communal worker, veteran Zionist and a leader of Cincinnati Jewry, died here last night of a heart attack after he collapsed while addressing a Jewish National Fund dinner at which he was honored for his extensive efforts on behalf of Israel. He was 82 years old. He was editor for 38 years of Every Friday, Cincinnati Anglo-Jewish weekly which he founded.

Born in Kovno, Mr. Schmidt came to this country in 1896, and after earning an engineering degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he served as an industrial health inspector. Turning his efforts to communal work, he headed the Settlement House in Cincinnati in 1916 and 1917. He then combined these two fields of endeavor to serve as a sanitarian with the Zionist Medical Unit in Palestine and later as a member of Joint Distribution Committee relief units in Poland.

After settling in Cincinnati in the 1920’s, Mr. Schmidt founded in 1927 the Anglo-Jewish weekly, Every Friday, which he edited until the paper ceased publication two months ago. He was active in the B’nai B’rith and on behalf of the Jewish National Fund of America, the American Jewish Congress and the Labor Zionist Organization. In the late 1930’s he was again called upon for his experience in overseas relief when he was sent by the Vaad Hatzalah of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada to various parts of Europe on the eve of the outbreak of the Second World War.