Yiddish Journalist Gershon Jacobson, 71

Veteran Yiddish journalist Gershon Jacobson died of heart failure in New York on May 29. He was 71.

Jacobson served as the editor-in-chief and publisher of The Algemeiner Journal since its inception in 1972. It is the country’s largest-circulation Yiddish weekly, catering primarily to the Orthodox community.

Born in Moscow in 1933, Jacobson began his journalistic career in Paris in the early 1950s. In 1952, he and his family moved to Toronto then to New York City. After studying at Columbia University’s School of Journalism, Jacobson secured a job writing obituaries for The New York Herald Tribune. After two years, he began covering the Jewish community. In the course of writing about Jews, Jacobson’s own sense of Jewishness was strengthened, and he began to lead a more religiously observant life.

Jacobson’s biggest scoop came in 1960 when connections at the Israeli consulate in New York helped him break the story of Adolf Eichmann’s capture by Mossad agents in Argentina.

After the Tribune ceased publication in 1966, Jacobson moved to the New York Post and then to Newsweek, before launching The Algemeiner Journal. He also wrote for the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot and for the New York-based Yiddish daily Der Tog-Morgen Journal (The Day Morning Journal).

He is survived by his wife, Sylvia (Tzivia), three sons and two daughters.

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