Abraham I. Shiplacoff (1877-1934), sometimes called the Jewish Eugene V. Debs, was born in Chernigov, Russia on December 13, 1877. He came to the United States with his parents at the age of 13 in 1891. For several years he worked long hours in a garment shop and studied at night. During this period he married Henrietta (Yetta) Zwickel, and they eventually had three children, Frederick Engels Shiplacoff, William Morris Shiplacoff, and Lydia Shiplacoff Greene. Beginning in 1905 he taught school at P.S. 84, Brooklyn, served as a clerk in the customs service, was briefly labor editor of the Jewish Daily Forward . In 1914 he became secretary-treasurer of the United Hebrew Trades. Politically active in the Socialist Party, he was elected as the first Socialist Assemblyman from New York City in 1915, re-elected in 1916 and 1917, and led the Socialist delegation in the Legislature in a campaign of strong opposition to World War I. He also supported the dissemination of birth control information, curbs on police power and other controversial causes.
When, as a street-corner orator, he denounced U.S. military intervention in Russia shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution, he was indicted under the wartime Espionage Act; the indictment was later quashed. He was elected to the Board of Aldermen from Brooklyn in 1920, managed the mayoral campaign of Norman Thomas in 1925, chaired the Sacco-Vanzetti Liberation Committee in 1927, and became a vigorous participant in Socialist battles with the Communist Party. During the twenties and early thirties he served as general manager of the Joint Board of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and the International Pocketbook Workers Union. He had a longstanding interest in Palestine and Zionism, and became national chairmen of the National Labor Committee for Palestine in 1933. He was actively involved in many Jewish philanthropic and cultural organizations, and served as executive director of the Deborah Sanitarium, Browns Mills, NJ. After a long struggle with kidney disease, he died in Israel-Zion Hospital in Brooklyn on February 7, 1934.
From the guide to the Abraham I. Shiplacoff Papers and Photographs, Bulk, 1915-1934, 1895-1962, (Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive)
