1. Morris U Schappes was an American educator, writer, radical political activist, historian, and magazine editor, best remembered for a 1941 perjury conviction obtained in association with testimony before the Rapp-Coudert Committee and as long-time editor of the radical magazine Jewish Currents.
Morris U Schappes was born Moishe ben Haim Shapshilevich in Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire.
The Shapshilevich family left Tsarist Russia when Morris was a small child, living first in Brazil before emigrating to the United States in 1914.
Morris Schappes earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from City College of New York and a Master's degree from Columbia University.
Morris Schappes was regarded as a scholar by his peers and frequently contributed reviews and commentary to the popular and academic press, including such magazines as Saturday Review, the New York Post, The Nation, Poetry, and American Literature.
In 1941, Morris Schappes was one of 40 educators fired in conjunction with an investigation by the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Educational System of the State of New York, commonly known as the Rapp-Coudert Committee, a body which attempted to identify and remove members of the Communist Party USA from the public education system of New York state.
Morris Schappes served nearly 14 months in state prison, where he learned Hebrew, attended Sabbath, and studied Jewish history.
In 1953, as part of fallout from a purge of books in USIA overseas libraries, The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy, subpoenaed Morris Schappes to appear before it in April 1953 to defend his own books.
In 1981, City University apologized to Morris Schappes and still-living professors for firing them four decades earlier.
Morris Schappes served as editor of this publication for the next four decades, ending in 2000.
In 1948, Morris Schappes began teaching at the Jefferson School of Social Science through 1957.
In 1957, Morris Schappes began teaching at the School of Jewish Knowledge through 1969.
Morris Schappes was an active member of the American Jewish Historical Society and the American Historical Association.
Morris Schappes garnered professional recognition for his work as a historian; in 1993 he received the Torchbearer Award of the American Jewish Historical Society.
In 1930, Morris Schappes married Sonya Laffer, who died in 1992.
Morris Schappes died age 97 on June 3,2004, in New York City.
In 1983, Morris Schappes submitted an oral history of his life to Columbia University in New York City, material which was transcribed into 66 pages.