Justice Philip Halpern, well known Jewish communal leader and for six years United States member of the United Nations Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, died here yesterday. He was 62.
Justice Halpern, who served in the New York State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, was on the UN Subcommission during the height of the swastika-smearing epidemic of 1960. In January of that year, he was the principal sponsor of the first UN resolution condemning anti-Semitism ever to be adopted by the world organisation.
He served on the Subcommission, a subsidiary of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, from 1954 to 1962. He also attended the Commission itself as principal advisor to the United States Delegation, from 1953 to 1955. He was awarded the National Brotherhood Citation of the National Conference of Christians and Jews in 1954 in recognition of his work at the United Nations. He was also chairman of the Buffalo chapter of the American Jewish Committee, and a member of the Committee’s board of delegates, its overall national governing body.
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