An Accidental Anarchist: How the Killing of a Humble Jewish Immigrant by Chicago's Chief of Police Exposed the Conflict Between Law & Order and Civil Rights in Early 20th Century America - Softcover

Roth, Walter; Kraus, Joe

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0897335023 ISBN 13: 9780897335027

Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2005

Synopsis

It was a bitter cold morning in March, 1908. A nineteen-year-old Jewish immigrant traversed the confusing and unfamiliar streets of Chicago–a one-and-a-half-hour-long journey–from his ghetto home on Washburne Avenue to the luxurious Lincoln Place residence of Police Chief George Shippy. He arrived at 9 a.m. Within minutes after knocking on the front door, Lazarus Averbuch lay dead on the hallway floor, shot no less than six times by the chief himself. Why Averbuch went to the police chief's house or exactly what happened after that is still not known.

This is the most comprehensive account ever written about this episode that stunned Chicago and won the attention of the entire country. It does not "solve" the mystery as much as it places it in the context of a nation that was unsure how to absorb all of the immigrants flowing across its borders. It attempts to reconstruct the many different perspectives and concerns that comprised the drama surrounding the investigation of Averbuch's killing.

About this title

About the Author:

Walter Roth is a senior partner in the law firm of D’Ancona & Pflaum in Chicago. He is president of the Chicago Jewish Historical Society and has written many articles for Chicago Jewish History, the Sentinel, and JUF News. Joe Kraus is Chair and Professor of English at the University of Scranton where he teaches Contemporary American literature and creative writing. His work has appeared, among other places, in The American Scholar, Callaloo, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Riverteeth, and Moment. He is currently the president of MELUS, the Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States. 

From Kirkus Reviews:

A sober analysis of the case, now little more than a historical footnote, that came to be known as the Averbuch Affair. On March 2, 1908, a Russian immigrant named Lazarus Averbuch, recently settled with his sister, Olga, in the Jewish ghetto of Chicago's West Side, traveled to Chief of Police George Shippy's North Side home for reasons that remain unknown. Shippy met Averbuch in the front entryway, and a struggle ensued that left the Russian dead. The event made front-page news. In a statement printed in that afternoon's newspaper, Shippy, ``a hardened foe of labor and social unrest,'' claimed to have shot Averbuch--who was quickly labeled an ``anarchist''--in self-defense after Shippy was knifed and his son wounded by a bullet. The Chicago police initially announced that they would not investigate the killing. ``In other words,'' write Roth and Kraus, ``the government would not police its own''--an attitude that might have reminded Olga Averbuch and her kin of the Russian-style policing from which they had fled. The officials' attempt to link Averbuch to an anarchist conspiracy was unsuccessful, but a coroner's inquest did validate Shippy's original story. The authors (Roth is president of the Chicago Jewish Historical Society, Kraus the editor of the society's journal) don't dare proclaim Averbuch's innocence. (One theory favoring this is that he'd gone to Shippy's hoping to obtain, per Russian custom, a certificate of good behavior that might allow him to find employment outside Chicago.) But they do conclude that he should be seen in a more benign light than he was. They substantiate their position with facts, unearthed from published and unpublished sources, that suggest there's not enough evidence to support the police chief's contention that he acted in self-defense. The authors have skillfully removed the dust from an obscure but troubling episode. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0897335023
• ISBN 13: 9780897335027
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 212