Maurice Paprin

Maurice Paprin (August 26, 1920 - November 29, 2005) was a New York City real estate developer and social activist.

Biography

Born to a Jewish family[1] on August 26, 1920. Paprin graduated from Townsend Harris High School in 1936 and City College in 1941. He gained an MA in history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and taught briefly at New York University, but pressures arising from McCarthyism eased him out of academia. He began to work for his father's restaurant business and became acquainted with Democratic party officials in Queens. In the 1960s, Paprin began building low-cost real estate in Queens and in several locations in Manhattan, including the Lower East Side. He also became involved in civil-rights and anti-Vietnam War activism. With Robert Boehm, he co-founded the Fund for New Priorities in America, which organized antiwar teach-ins and mobilized people to press for a ceasefire. He continued this tradition by being a prime funder of the Military Families Support Network during the first Persian Gulf War of 1990–91. The grassroots anti-war group comprised the first time in US history that active duty troops' own families had organized to protest against the war their relatives had been deployed to fight. The MFSN motto was "Support the Troops- Oppose the War." Paprin was also a prominent supporter of liberal politicians such as Edward M. Kennedy, George McGovern, and, later, Dennis Kucinich.

Paprin remained a force on the New York real-estate and social-activist scene into the 2000s. In his later years, his foremost concerns were educating young people worldwide--he was a key backer of the organization iEARN--and campaigning for the release of Lori Berenson, an American woman held captive in Peru. He also supported the New School and the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.

Paprin's sister, Eugenia, married Ewart Guinier, the prominent civil-rights activist; Harvard University law professor Lani Guinier is Paprin's niece.

Personal life and death

Paprin married twice. His first wife, Rita Most, died in 1980.[2] In 1982, he married Jacqueline Stuchin Paprin.[2][3] Paprin had three sons: Seth Paprin (married to Melissa Cohn),[4] Yale I. Paprin, and Frederick R. Paprin; a daughter, Dr. Judith E. Paprin; and two stepsons Dr. Steven A. Stuchin and Miles M. Stuchin.[2][5]

Paprin died on November 25, 2005 from a fall.[2] Services were held at the Riverside Memorial Chapel.[6]

References
  1. "November Yahrzeits" (PDF). Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester. November 2011.
  2. Saxon, Wolfgang (November 29, 2005). "Maurice S. Paprin, 85, Builder and Advocate for Liberal Causes, Is Dead". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 10, 2012. Retrieved December 12, 2013. Maurice Sanford Paprin, a retired New York builder and property owner with another life as a liberal social activist, died on Friday at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital in Manhattan. He was 85 and lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The cause was an injury sustained in a fall, said a family spokesman, Harry Zlokower. ...
  3. "Bernard H. Stuchin, 58, New Rochelle Financier". New York Times. February 28, 1979.
  4. "Melissa L. Cohn Weds Seth Paprin". New York Times. June 9, 1991. Melissa Lynn Cohn, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Albert L. Cohn of Llewellyn Park, N.J., was married last evening at the Water Club in New York to Seth Paprin, a son of Maurice S. Paprin of New York and the late Rita Paprin. Rabbi Balfour Bruckner officiated.
  5. "Miles Stuchin, Lawyer, Weds Marcie Serchuck". New York Times. May 15, 1977.
  6. "Deaths Paprin, Maurice S." New York Times. November 27, 2005.
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