Averbuch, Lazarus, 1889-1908

https://digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/items/show/2954

Lazarus Averbuch was a young Jewish immigrant who settled in Chicago. He immigrated in 1907, as a teenager, from Austria, where he'd fled to from Russia after being persecuted for being Jewish. Upon arriving in the States, he worked as an egg packer at a produce commission house. Three months later, in 1908, he reportedly went to the house of the Chicago Chief of Police, George Shippy and was killed. Police buried Averbauch's body without a ceremony. However, when the body was scheduled to be exhumed for a Jewish burial, it was discovered that the body was gone. The body eventually found, however, the brain had been removed. Original reports justify the killing of Averbach, stating that he was an anarchist who arrived wielding a knife and pistol and had been selected to assassinate Shippy. However, public outcry, led by Jane Addams, followed these reports and it was argued that Averbach never even owned a pistol and had only gone to Shippy's residence in the hopes of obtaining a letter of good character. Many believed that the killing had been committed based on Averbach's appearance amid a time of increasing unease and antisemitism.

Lazarus “Jerome” Averbuch (1889–1908)[1] was a 19-year-old[2] Russian-born Jewish immigrant to Chicago who was shot and killed by Chicago Chief of Police George M. Shippy[3] on March 2, 1908.[4] The incident occurred during an era of public fear of foreign-born anarchists in the United States, following their involvement with the Haymarket affair in 1886.[5] The exact circumstances of the shooting remain contested, but Averbuch's death has inspired speculation, ideological arguments, and works of fiction.[6] Averbuch is referred to most often as Lazarus Averbuch, but he was likely known as Harry or Jeremiah.[7] He was born in 1889 in Kishinev, in the Russian Empire (the present-day capital of the Republic of Moldova). He and his older sister, Olga Averbuch, survived the Kishinev pogrom.[8] Averbuch followed his sister to Chicago, Illinois, immigrating a year after her[9] and arriving in late 1907.[10] They lived in a small apartment in the Eastern European Jewish neighborhood on Chicago's Near West Side.[5] Averbuch worked as an egg packer on South Water Street in Chicago.[7] Early in the morning of Monday, March 2, 1908, Lazarus Averbuch visited the home[11] of George Shippy, Chicago's Chief of Police, in Lincoln Park.[9] Averbuch entered the residence at 9 AM,[12] shots were fired, and Averbuch was killed. According to Shippy, this was Averbuch's fourth visit in two days, making him a suspicious figure. When they encountered each other in Shippy's entryway, Shippy grabbed Averbuch by the arms, attempting to disable him. Averbuch then allegedly drew a knife, and wounded Shippy in the arm. Then, Averbuch drew a revolver and fired, striking Shippy's son, Harry, as he entered from upstairs[13] to investigate the noise. Shippy's driver and bodyguard, James Foley, entered the house and attempted to restrain Averbuch. Averbuch shot Foley in the hand before he was shot repeatedly by Foley and Shippy.[4] Newspapers reported that Averbuch, an anarchist, wanted to assassinate Shippy because Shippy shut down an anarchist demonstration.[14] Jane Addams responded to the Averbuch murder with an essay, "The Chicago Settlements and Social Unrest," printed in Charities and the Commons. Addams, speaking from her position as the head of a settlement house, argued that immigrants were treated as poorly or more poorly by the authorities in America as they had been treated in their home countries.[4] Besides Jane Addams' essay, others found inspiration in Averbuch's death. Walter Roth and Joe Kraus's book, An Accidental Anarchist: How the Killing of a Humble Jewish Immigrant by Chicago's Chief of Police Exposed the Conflict between Law and Order and Civil Rights in Early Twentieth Century America, aims to reconstruct the context of Averbuch's death and studies the perspectives of the parties involved.[17] The story of Lazarus Averbuch struck author Aleksander Hemon as a failure of the American Dream.[18] His novel, The Lazarus Project,[19] follows an Eastern European immigrant to America discovering the story of Lazarus Averbuch.[20]