Maurice Paprin

Biography

Born 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.

Paprin died in November 25, 2005 from a fall.