Paul Rapaport - July 9, 1987

Paul -
Paul was truly a mensche. He could come across as a bit of a nebbish: short, receding hairline and a moustache that gave his face a definite mouse like appearance. All of this disappeared when he smiled, which he often did or when he put on his attorney face. The Rapaport's were leaders in the Jewish community and Paul brought this to the gay community. He and others pushed to purchase the building on 13th Street for the Gay Community Center. At the time they said we got a really bad deal on it: the old high school ran on a coal furnace and wasn't being used anyhow. The fact that we should pay for a vacant building that should have been torn down was outrageous. But, we did.
We met on some committee, somewhere. He and Tim Sweeney (Lamda Legal Defense) and Ginny Apuzzo (National Gay Task Force) met regularly for breakfast. Later others would join the breakfast: Ken Dawson (SAGE), Roger Macfarlane (GMHC).
He called himself a generalist in the community - not tied to a particular cause - and with a great deal of money and which he used throughout the community. Any worthwhile cause was considered and many owed they're birth to Paul and men like him.
http://www.paulrapoportfoundation.org/index.html