Paul Israel Rapoport (March 6, 1940,

Flushing, New York Flushing is a neighborhood in the north-central portion of the New York City borough of Queens. The neighborhood is the fourth-largest central business district in New York City. Downtown Flushing is a major commercial and retail area, and the i ...

– July 9, 1987,

New York, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Uni ...

) was a co-founder of both the New York City

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Services Center The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center (formerly Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center), commonly called The Center, is a nonprofit organization serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population of New Yo ...

and

Gay Men's Health Crisis The GMHC (formerly Gay Men's Health Crisis) is a New York City–based non-profit, volunteer-supported and community-based AIDS service organization whose mission statement is to "end the AIDS epidemic and uplift the lives of all affected." Hist ...

. The

private foundation A private foundation is a tax-exempt organization not relying on broad public support and generally claiming to serve humanitarian purposes. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest private foundation in the U.S. with over $38 billion ...

that bore his name was, during its active years, one of the oldest and largest

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

-focused foundations in the country. Son of Ida and David and younger brother of Daniel, Paul Rapoport attended New York City P.S. 107, the

Horace Mann School , motto_translation = Great is the truth and it prevails , address = 231 West 246th Street , city = The Bronx , state = New York , zipcode = 10471 , count ...

and

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, from which he graduated in 1962. He graduated cum laude from

Columbia University Law School Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Columbia University, a Private university, private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestig ...

in 1965, and later received an LL.M. in tax from

New York University School of Law New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is the law school of New York University, a private research university in New York City. Established in 1835, it is the oldest law school in New York City and the oldest surviving law school in New ...

. Rapoport died of

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

New York University Medical Center NYU Langone Health is an academic medical center located in New York City, New York, United States. The health system consists of NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NYU Long Island School of Medicine, both part of New York University (NYU), and m ...

at the age of 47. In September 1987 his estate of roughly $8 million was used to establish The Paul Rapoport Foundation, which at Rapoport's direction gave to

and AIDS, HIV/AIDS causes in the New York metropolitan area. In a press release dated July 6, 2009 the Paul Rapoport Foundation announced its intention to spend out. The Foundation ceased operations in June 2015. Its archives are located in the Human Sexuality Collection of the Cornell University Library.

References

Sources

*Obituary, The Record (Bergen County), July 12, 1987 {{DEFAULTSORT:Rapoport, Paul People from Queens, New York 1940 births 1987 deaths New York (state) lawyers Horace Mann School alumni New York University School of Law alumni Columbia Law School alumni Cornell University alumni AIDS-related deaths in New York (state) 20th-century American lawyers