Fred Berk, founder and for 28 years director of the Jewish Dance Division of the 92nd Street YMHA, died Tuesday at the age of 69 of heart failure at the Metropolitan Hospital. Berk, born in Austria, was a modem dancer and an authority on Israeli folk dances. He was teaching at the Y at the time of his death.
As well as being the editor of a bibliography entitled “Jewish Dance,” Berk was the director of the Hebraica Dancers, the Israel’s Folk Dance Festival and the Israeli Folk Dance Institute of the American Zionist Youth Foundation. At the time of his death, Berk was at work on a project with the Dance Collection of the New York Public Library, indexing all the research collection’s Jewish dance materials. A memorial folk dance festival will be held on March 23 at Town Hall, to be followed by a memorial service on April 6 at the y.
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