Abraham Kaplansky

Abraham Leon Kaplansky (Yiddish: אברהם־לייבּ קאַפלאַנסקי, romanized: Avrom-Leyb Kaplansky; 1 May 1860 – 5 July 1939) was a Canadian printer, lawyer, and communal worker, who established Canada's first Hebrew and Yiddish printing press.^[1]

Abraham Kaplansky
Born	Avrom-Leyb Kaplansky (1860-05-01)1 May 1860 Białystok, Grodno Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	5 July 1939(1939-07-05) (aged 79) Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Burial place	Spanish and Portuguese Congregation Cemetery, Outremont
Spouse	Elka Rabinovitch ​ ​ (m. 1891; died 1920)​

Biography

Kaplansky was born in Białystok, where he trained and worked as a printer.^[2] He immigrated to New York in 1889, where he entered the steamship ticket business, before moving to Montreal in 1893.^[3] There he established the first Hebrew and Yiddish printing press in Canada, using type imported from New York, which largely produced booklets, pamphlets, and other ephemera.^[2] Among Kaplansky's first publications were calendars for the Jewish years 5655 and 5656.^[4]

In 1906 he was made a justice of the peace for the District of Montreal,^[5] and the following year he took up the study of law.^[3] He was appointed head of the legal aid service of the Baron de Hirsch Institute in 1910.^[6] Kaplansky became the first clerk of the Montreal Jewish Court of Arbitration when it was founded in 1915 under the auspices of the institute.^[7]

Kaplansky was meanwhile active in a number charitable institutions and fraternal societies. He served as District Deputy Grand Master of the Independent Order of the Sons of Benjamin, as Treasurer of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue,^[3] and as president of the Chevra Kadisha congregation.^[8] He was also instrumental in establishing the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society of Canada.^[8]

On his death in July 1939, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency described Kaplansky as "one of the best known Jews in Canada".^[9]

References

1. Margolis, Rebecca (2007). "La culture juive de l'imprimé". Histoire du livre et de l'imprimé au Canada. Montreal: Presses de l'Université de Montréal. doi:10.4000/books.pum.17329.
2. Margolis, Rebecca (2011). Jewish Roots, Canadian Soil: Yiddish Cultural Life in Montreal, 1905–1945. McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-7735-8589-8.
3. Hart, Arthur Daniel (1926). The Jew in Canada: A Complete Record of Canadian Jewry from the Days of the French Régime to the Present Time. Toronto and Montreal: Jewish Publications, Limited. p. 91.
4. Hill, Brad Sabin (2005–2006). "Early Hebrew Printing in Canada". Studia Rosenthaliana. 38–39: 320–325, 332–343. ISBN 9789042919082. JSTOR 41482690.
5. "Personal and Social Notes". The Canadian Jewish Times. Vol. 9, no. 25. 2 November 1906.
6. Medresh, Israël (1997). Le Montréal juif d'autrefois (in French). Translated by Anctil, Pierre. Septentrion. p. 52. ISBN 978-2-89448-077-9.
7. Kary, Joseph (December 2016). "Judgments of Peace Montreal's Jewish Arbitration Courts, 1914–1976". American Journal of Legal History. 56 (4): 436–489. doi:10.1093/ajlh/njw018.
8. Rome, David, ed. (1986). The Immigration Story. Montreal: National Archives, Canadian Jewish Congress. pp. 25–26, 50.
9. "Abraham Kaplansky, Pioneer Printer in Canada, Dies" (PDF). J.T.A. News. Vol. 5, no. 179. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 7 July 1939. p. 5.