Judge Jacob J. Kaplan, an active civic leader here and a prominent member of the Boston Jewish community, died here yesterday at the age of 71. Judge Kaplan was a founder of the Combined Jewish Appeal and was president of the Associated Jewish Philanthropies from 1943 to 1947.
Born in New York, Judge Kaplan was an honor graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He was the first Jew to become president of the Boston Bar Association. He was a trustee of Wellesley College and the Hebrew Teachers College in Boston. He also had served as president of the Bureau of Jewish Education here and chairman of the Board of Managers of Trustee Properties of the Associated Jewish Philanthropies.
Judge Kaplan was a special Justice of the Dorchester Municipal Court from 1928 to 1936. Besides his affiliation with the Boston Bar Association, he also was a member of the American and Massachusetts Bar Associations and the Bar Association of the City of New York.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.