Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Join thousands of readers who support our workDONATE NOW
News

Jacob Waisbord, 91, Yiddish Copy Editor

OBITUARY

Jacob Waisbord, Holocaust survivor and member of the Forward Association, died December 21. He was 91.

Waisbord, whose entire family perished during World War II, fled his native Poland, where he had been a student of historian Emanuel Ringelblum.

He came to the United States on a visa from the Jewish Labor Committee that had been obtained with the help of Eleanor Roosevelt. After arriving in America in 1941, he served in the U.S. Army. He worked as a proofreader and copy editor at the Yiddish daily Der Tog and later at the Yiddish Forward.

An activist in the Left Poale Zion party while in Europe, Waisbord continued to be a devoted Zionist, raising money for Israel until his death, his daughter, Myra Treitel, told the Forward. His motto, Treitel said, was to keep “burning with a slow, steady flame” of devotion to Israel and Jewish causes.

Waisbord was a leader of Emanuel Ringelblum Branch 612 of the Workmen’s Circle, served several terms on the organization’s national executive board and spent a term as its treasurer.

He is survived by his daughter Myra, her husband, Dr. Herman Treitel, and their two sons, Mark and Stuart.

Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief

You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.

And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.