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Berl Katznelson, Noted Palestine Labor Leader, Dies Suddenly in Jerusalem

August 14, 1944
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Jews of Palestine were mourning today the sudden death of Berl Katznelson, one of Palestine’s outstanding Jewish labor leaders, who died about 10 o’clock last evening of a hemorrhage. His body was taken today to Tel Aviv when it will be carried for burial to Kinereth, in accordance with Katznelson’s last wishes.

Suffering fatigue as a result of the elections which took place recently to the Jewish National Assembly and to the Palestine Federation of Labor, Katznelson, who was also the editor of the Davar, Palestine’s leading newspaper, came from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to spend a few days with his friends here. Yesterday evening, shortly after nine o’clock, he suddenly lost consciousness. The arriving physicians said that nothing could be done to save his life. He died twenty minutes later.

Members of the executive of the Jewish Agency and of other national Jewish organizations, who were notified of his sudden death hurried to Jerusalem. They joined in the guard of honor from midnight till seven o’clock in the morning, when the body was transferred to the headquarters of the Jewish National Fund of which Katznelson was a director. There the body laid in state, covered with a blue-white flag until it was transferred to Tel Aviv to the headquarters of the Histradruth, of which Katznelson was one of the pillars.

Katznelson, who visited the United States in 1937, was born in Bobroisk, Byelorussia, in 1887. He emigrated to Palestine in 1909.

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