Funeral services were held here Tuesday for Samuel Lewis Gaber, formerly longtime Pennsylvania-West Virginia-Delaware regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. He died last Friday at age 67 in West Palm Beach, Fla., where he moved last year upon his appointment to head ADL’s Palm Beach County office. A native Philadelphian, Gaber headed the ADL Philadelphia office since he joined the human relations agency in 1964.
After World War II, he was cultural consultant for Germany and Austria for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and served as administrative director of the Board of Education and Culture, a tripartite ogency consisting of the JDC, the Central Committee of Liberated Jews and the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
Gaber also worked with the displaced persons branch of the U.S. Army of Occupation, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and its successor, the International Relief Organization.
He was a former member of the field staff of the American Jewish Congress and the national staff of the American Jewish Committee. He was the director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kingston, NY.
An honor graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Education, Gaber was named a Fe’s Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute of Local and State Government and a Fulbright Scholar for adult education in The Netherlands. He received a master’s degree in human relations from the University of Pennsylvania, where he later served on the faculty as an instructor.
In 1973, Gaber became the first recipient of ADL’s annual Milton Senn Award for Professional Excellence. In 1975, he was named a member of the Legion of Honor of Philadelphia’s Chapel of the Four Chaplains in recognition of his interfaith achievements.
Gaber was vice president of the Association of Jewish Community Relations Workers, secretary-treasurer of the Pennsylvania Jewish Community Relations Conference and secretary of the Pennsylvania Equal Rights Council.
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.
