Morris Schappes

Morris U. Schappes (pronounced SHAP-pess, born Moishe Shapshilevich; May 3, 1907 – June 3, 2004) 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 (investigating Communism in education in New York) and as long-time editor of the radical magazine Jewish Currents.

Background

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.

In 1928, he accepted a position as a lecturer in the English Department of City College. as an effective teacher and was awarded annual pay raises seven times during his career at City College.

Investigations

Rapp-Coudert

In 1941, 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.

McCarthy

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 Schappes to appear before it in April 1953 to defend his own books.

Jewish Life

In November 1946, he became a member of the editorial board of Jewish Life (later known as Jewish Currents), an English-language magazine associated with the Communist Party USA dealing with Jewish issues and targeted to a Jewish readership. He served as editor of this publication for the next four decades, ending in 2000. He wrote "The Editor's Diary."

Regarding the Communist Party, the New York Times noted at his death: It is not clear when Mr. Schappes broke with the Communist Party, but at least one account, J. Edgar Hoover's book Masters of Deceit, suggests that Mr. Schappes was still active as late as 1957. By 1958, Ms. Jochnowitz said, the Jewish Life staff had become anguished by the Soviet Union's abrupt discarding of Stalin and the only sort of Communism they had known. They started Jewish Currents that year as a voice independent of Moscow, both in content and financing. Morris Schappes died age 97 on June 3, 2004, in New York City.

Works

Letters from the Tombs. Foreword by Richard Wright. New York: Schappes Defense Committee, 1941. The Daily Worker: Heir to the Great Tradition. New York: Daily Worker, 1944. Resistance is the Lesson: The Meaning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. New York: Jewish Life, n.d. (1948). Anti-Semitism and Reaction, 1795-1800. Philadelphia: Publications of the Jewish Historical Society, n.d. (1948). Problems of Jewish Culture. New York: School of Jewish Studies, 1950. A Documentary History of the Jews in the United States, 1654-1875. New York: Citadel Press, 1950. The Jews in the United States: A Pictorial History, 1654 to the Present. New York: Citadel Press, 1958. Shylock and Anti-Semitism. New York: Jewish Currents, 1962. The Strange World of Hannah Arendt. New York: Jewish Currents, 1963. Jewish Currents Reader: A Selection of Short Stories, Poems and Essays from Jewish Currents Years 1956-1966. Editor. New York: Jewish Currents, 1966. Jewish Identity: Dialogue with Jewish Youth. With Michael H. Agronoff and Judith Kerman. New York: Jewish Currents, 1967. The Jewish Question and the Left — Old and New: A Challenge to the New Left. New York: Jewish Currents, 1970. Irving Howe's 'The World of Our Fathers': A Critical Analysis. New York: Jewish Currents, 1977.