Funeral services were held today for Bernard Postal, editor, author and publicist whose career in Jewish journalism spanned more than half a century. He died last Thursday at his home in Oceanside, Long Island after suffering a heart attack. He was 75 years old.
Postal had been associate editor of The Jewish Week, an American-Jewish newspaper serving the Greater New York area, for the past 10 years ever since his retirement as public information director of the national Jewish Welfare Board (JWB).
In the early 1920s, he was a reporter for the New York Globe and New York World. From 1926 to 1928 he was exchange editor of The New York Times. From 1929 to 1931 Postal was editor of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Daily Bulletin. From 1931 to 1938 he was editor of the Seven Arts Feature Syndicate and Worldwide News Service.
He also edited the Jersey City Jewish Standard from 1932 to 1934, and the Jewish War Veteran from 1934 to 1937. From 1938 to 1946 he was public relations director for B’nai B’rith in Washington, D. C., and left to assume a similar position at JWB in New York. He was editor of the monthly magazine The Jewish Digest from its inception in 1955.
CO-AUTHOR OF 10 BOOKS
Postal was co-author of 10 books of Jewish interest. Among them were “Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports” (with Roy and Jesse Silver); “And the Hills Shouted For Joy: The Day Israel Was Born” (with Henry Levy); “Jewish Landmarks of New York: An Informal History and Guide,” and “Guess Who’s Jewish in American History” (both with Lionel Koppman); and “Landmarks of a People: A Guide to Jewish Sites in Europe” (with Samuel Abramson). Another book, “American Jewish Landmarks, Vol. III,” which he co-authored with Koppman, will be published this year by Fleet Press.
During the 300th anniversary of American Jewish settlement in 1954, Postal was honored by JWB’s Jewish Book Council for his contributions to American Jewish history. Last December, he was presented with the Maggid Award of the American Jewish Public Relations Society.
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.
