Representatives of Brooklyn and Manhatian Jewish organizations and groups paid last tribute to Jacob Mark, Orthodox Jewish communal leader and writer, who died Sunday following a paralytic stroke at the age of 71. Funeral services were held at Congregation Chovevei Torah, Eastern Parkway and Albany Avenue, Brooklyn. Interment was in Beth David Cemetery, Long Island.
The late Mr. Mark was one of the most interesting personalities who came to the United States in the wave of post war immigration.
Born in Polangen, Courland, formerly a part of Russia, on November 22, 1858, Mr. Mark was educated in Talmudical schools. He was the first man in Imperial Russia to teach commercial science and bookkeeping by correspondence, starting the system in 1885. Many of his students emigrated to the United States and became prosperous business men. In Liban, Riga, St. Petersburg and other Russian centres he took a leading part in Jewish cultural and religious activities. He was a director of the immigrant welfare committee established by the Jewish Colonization Association at the close of the last century, when there was a great immigration from Russia to the United States. He was of assistance to thousands of these immigrants. Owing to his efforts, a direct steamship fine from Liban to New York was established.
Mr. Mark came to this country in 1919 to establish closer commercial communication between the newly created Republic of Latvia and the United States. Since them he had become active in marry Jewish educational institutions in Brooklyn and a frequent contributor to this city’s Jewish journals.
A volume in Yiddish entitled “Celebrities of a Passing Generation” and containing his memoirs and the biographies of the outstanding rabbis and leaders of the Jews in pre-war Russia was published a year ago and found wide distribution. He was the founder and secretary of Chavrutiza club of Jewish intellectuals, of which Peter Wierik, author of “The History of the Jews in America” and editor of The Jewish Morning Journal, is president.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
