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Victor Rabinowitz Papers

Call Number

TAM.123

Dates

1918-2003, inclusive
; 1955-1980, bulk

Creator

Rabinowitz, Victor

Extent

34 Linear Feet in 35 boxes in 1 folder in a shared oversize box.

Language of Materials

Materials are in English

Abstract

Victor Rabinowitz (1911- 2007) had a long and distinguished career as an attorney specializing in civil liberties cases, international law, labor law and U.S. constitutional law. He was a partner in the firm of Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard and Krinsky and argued cases at many levels in New York City and New York, as well as appearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the U. S. Supreme Court. Rabinowitz represented Alger Hiss in his efforts to obtain government documents relevant to re-opening his case. He also represented the governments of Cuba and Chile in U.S. courts, and appeared on behalf on many labor unions and leftist individuals and political organizations. He was an activist in the American Labor Party in the 1940s and was a candidate for office on the ALP ticket. The collection contains correspondence, appointment books, writings (including drafts of his 1996 memoir Unrepentant Leftist: A Lawyer's Memoir), political papers, legal records, and FOIA files. It also includes administrative files of the Louis M. Rabinowitz Foundation.

Historical/Biographical Note

Victor Rabinowitz was the son of Jewish immigrants, born into a family where radical politics was common. His maternal grandfather was an anarchist and Yiddish-language author under the pseudonym Joseph Netter. Rabinowitz's father was a successful manufacturer in the clothing industry who in 1944 established the Louis M. Rabinowitz foundation, and which supported projects in Jewish scholarship and culture and a variety of progressive causes. The Foundation was administered by Victor after his father's death in 1957.

After receiving his law degree from the University of Michigan in 1934 and joining a law firm, Rabinowitz became involved in the work of the International Labor Defense, a Popular Front organization. He joined the National Lawyers Guild, a politically left professional organization, upon its founding in 1938, and the same year joined the progressive law firm of Louis Boudin. There he met Leonard Boudin, Louis' nephew, who would become his law partner and close friend for the next fifty years. The firm's practice centered upon labor law, which was to become a focal point of Victor's legal work for the next two decades. His political views coincided with those of the Communist Party, of which he was to be a member from 1942-1960. In 1947, the law firm that eventually came to be known as Rabinowitz, Boudin (Leonard), Standard and Krinsky was formed. With the coming of the Cold War and its attendant anti-Communist legislation and government investigations, Rabinowitz's practice increasingly involved defending unions accused of being led by Communists, notably the American Communications Association; individual Communists, including Steve Nelson; New York City public school teachers dismissed for refusing to answer questions about their political affiliations; and the Communist Party itself, as well as progressive union dissidents in such formerly radical unions as the National Maritime Union. He was active in the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, a left-wing offshoot of the American Civil Liberties Union. Rabinowitz was an activist in the American Labor Party in the 1940s; he was a candidate on the ALP ticket for County Court Judge of Kings County, NY (1942) and for Congress (1947).

Victor Rabinowitz's post-1960 clients included the government of Cuba and the socialist government of Chile (1970-73) pursuing cases in U.S. courts, alleged Soviet spy Alger Hiss during the 1970s in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain documents relating to his case from the FBI, various labor unions and union rank-and-file activists, civil rights activists and individuals arrested while protesting the Vietnam War. He also defended his daughter Joni Rabinowitz on perjury charges connected with her work for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and his son Peter J. Rabinowitz, a college professor allegedly transferred from Southwest College, a public junior college in Chicago, for his political activities. Rabinowitz also served two terms as president of the National Lawyers Guild, beginning in 1967, and was active in the Bill of Rights Foundation and the Fund for Education and Legal Defense. Other clients included the Freedom Socialist Party, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and Otto Nathan, executor of the estate of Albert Einstein. In 1996, Rabinowitz published an autobiography, Unrepentant Leftist: A Lawyer's Memoir. He died at his home in New York City, at the age of 96, in November 2007.

Sources:

Rabinowitz, Victor. Unrepentant Leftist: A Lawyer's Memoir. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996.

Arrangement

Series I is arranged chronologically; all other series are arranged alphabetically.

The files are organized into 5 series:

Series I: Correspondence, 1944-2002

Series II: Subject Files, 1929-2003

Series III: Case Files, 1918-2001

Series IV: Appointment Books, 1943-2001

Series V: Records of the Louis M. Rabinowitz Foundation, 1957-1991

Series I is arranged chronologically; all other series are arranged alphabetically.

The files are organized into 5 series:

Missing Title

  1. I, Correspondence, 1944-2002.
  2. II, Subject Files, 1929-2003.
  3. III, Case Files, 1918-2001.
  4. IV, Appointment Books, 1943-2001.
  5. V, Records of the Louis M. Rabinowitz Foundation, 1957-1991.

Scope and Content Note

The collection contains correspondence, appointment books, writings (including drafts of his memoir Unrepentant Leftist: A Lawyer's Memoir), political papers, and legal records and FOIA files. It also includes administrative files of the Louis M. Rabinowitz Foundation.

The correspondence series, arranged chronologically, focuses on Rabinowitz's political and legal activities, although there is some more personal material, including letters regarding his travels to Cuba and elsewhere. The subject files series includes files on a variety of individual, organizations, and activities, an oral history interview, and drafts of Unrepentant Leftist. The largest number of files relate to the National Lawyers Guild and include FOIA files on the Guild; and there is also a substantial number of files on the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee and the Fund for Education and Legal Defense. Other FOIA files concern Rabinowitz, Kathy Boudin, Leonard Boudin, Daniel Ellsberg, James Hoffa, and the Teachers' Union of the City of New York. Other individuals of note represented in this series include Frederick Vanderbilt Field, and authors Cedric Belfrage and his daughter Sally Belfrage. The subject files also include a small number of photographs of Victor Rabinowitz and his family, friends and clients (including Fidel Castro and Pete Seeger). Notable and/or extensive files in the Legal Case Files series include those on the American Communications Association, Alger Hiss, Peter Rabinowitz, the Freedom Socialist Party, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Other notable clients and cases included Harry Adler and Minerva Feinstein (v. NYC Board of Education – back pay), Kathy Boudin (murder), Carl and Anne Braden (sedition), Louis C. Fraina (aka Lewis Corey, draft resistance, 1918), Communist leader Irving Potash (subversive activities), and Anna Louise Strong (passport application). The Louis M. Rabinowitz Foundation records series includes correspondence, files relating to funding proposals accepted or rejected, and minutes.

Conditions Governing Access

Materials open without restrictions.

Conditions Governing Use

Any rights (including copyright and related rights to publicity and privacy) held by Victor Rabinowitz, the creator of this collection, were relinquished and transferred to New York University in 2004. Permission to publish or reproduce materials in this collection must be secured from the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive. Please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu.

Preferred Citation

Identification of item, date; Victor Rabinowitz Papers; TAM 123; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.

Location of Materials

Materials stored offsite and advance notice is required for use. Please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu at least two business days prior to research visit.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The papers were purchased from Victor Rabinowitz in April 2004. A small number of additional materials were added to the collection in 2006. The accession numbers associated with this gift are 2004.027, 2004.028, and NPA 2006 044.

Related Material at the Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives

Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard and Krinsky: Legal Files (TAM 287)

National Lawyers Guild Records (TAM 191)

Collection processed by

Johanna Blokker, Craig Savino, Sarah Graff and Gail Malmgreen.

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-20 16:51:32 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: Finding aid is written in English

Processing Information

Photographs separated from this collection during processing were established as a separate collection, the Victor Rabinowitz Photographs (PHOTOS 224). In 2014, the photograph collection was reincorporated into the Victor Rabinowitz Papers (TAM 123).

Repository

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012