Maurice Sanford Paprin (August 26, 1920 – November 29, 2005) was a

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

real estate developer and social activist.

Biography

Born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family on August 26, 1920. Paprin graduated from

Townsend Harris High School Townsend Harris High School at Queens College (THHS) is a public magnet high school for the humanities in the borough of Queens in New York City. Students and alumni often refer to themselves as "Harrisites." Townsend Harris consistently ranks a ...

in 1936 and City College in 1941. He gained an MA in history from the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

and taught briefly at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, but pressures arising from

McCarthyism McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origin ...

eased him out of academia. He began to work for his father's restaurant business and became acquainted with

Democratic party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

officials in Queens. In the 1960s, Paprin began building low-cost real estate in

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

and in several locations in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, including the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...

. He became involved in civil-rights and anti-

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

activism. With

Robert Boehm Robert Boehm (1914December 26, 2006) was an American political activist. Boehm was a 1935 graduate of Dartmouth College and a 1939 graduate of Columbia University Law School. The son of an attorney, he married his father's secretary, Frances Rozran ...

, 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 The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...

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". He was a prominent supporter of such politicians as Edward M. Kennedy,

George McGovern George Stanley McGovern (July 19, 1922 – October 21, 2012) was an American historian and South Dakota politician who was a U.S. representative and three-term U.S. senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 pres ...

, and, later,

Dennis Kucinich Dennis John Kucinich (; born October 8, 1946) is an American politician. A U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1997 to 2013, he was also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2004 and 2008. He ran for ...

. 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 Lori Helene Berenson (born November 13, 1969) is an American who served a 20-year prison sentence for collaboration with a guerrilla organization in Peru in 1996. Berenson was convicted of collaborating with the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movemen ...

, an American woman held captive in Peru. He also supported

The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

and the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.

Family

Paprin's sister, Eugenia, married

Ewart Guinier Ewart Gladstone Guinier (May 17, 1910 – February 4, 1990) was a Jamaican-American educator, lawyer, and labor leader. He was the founding chairman of Harvard University's Afro-American Studies department, now known as the Department of African ...

, the prominent civil-rights activist;

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

law professor

Lani Guinier Carol Lani Guinier (; April 19, 1950 – January 7, 2022) was an American educator, legal scholar, and civil rights theorist. She was the Bennett Boskey Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and the first woman of color appointed to a tenured p ...

was Paprin's niece.

Personal life and death

Paprin married twice. His first wife, Rita Most, died in 1980. In 1982, he married Jacqueline Stuchin Paprin. Paprin had three sons: Seth Paprin, Yale I. Paprin, and Frederick R. Paprin; a daughter, Dr. Judith E. Paprin; and two stepsons, Dr. Steven A. Stuchin and Miles M. Stuchin. Paprin died on November 25, 2005, aged 85, from a fall. Services were held at the

Riverside Memorial Chapel The Riverside Memorial Chapel is a Jewish funeral home chain with their main facility at 180 West 76th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City.1920 births 2005 deaths Accidental deaths from falls American real estate businesspeople American activists 20th-century American Jews Accidental deaths in New York (state) Businesspeople from New York City University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni New York University faculty Townsend Harris High School alumni 21st-century American Jews