Abraham Isaac "Abe" Shiplacoff (December 13, 1877 – February 7, 1934) was a Ukrainian-born Jewish-American trade union organizer, educator, journalist and politician.

Considered the "Jewish Debs,"[1][2] Shiplacoff is best remembered as a Socialist New York assemblyman and as a prominent target of prosecution for sedition under the Espionage Act in 1918.

Shiplacoff chaired the meeting, which resolved to ask U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to demand that Russia grant equal rights to its Jewish citizens at the end of World War I.

This was not the result of any antagonistic feeling toward the 'lone red,' but almost entirely due to the fact that I was not open for bargaining; for the success or failure of getting one's bill out of a committee depends mainly on one's willingness to exchange courtesies... Having no concessions to make [in trading votes], I had no hopes of getting any in return.

[8] Chief among these were a series of bills intended to exempt dairy workers from existing laws mandating one rest day in seven, which appeared approximately a dozen times before ultimately being passed in a watered-down form.

[8] Shiplacoff was also the single assemblyman opposed to the 1916 Slater-Welsh bill, which established compulsory military training in New York State for unemployed boys between the ages of 16 and 19.

[9] Among the legislation proposed by Shiplacoff during this inaugural session were bills which would have required any employer placing an ad offering jobs during a strike to make that fact clear in the advertisement, tightening regulations for exits on any factory building over one story in height, banning the use of armed guards during strikes, provision of compensation for workers suffering permanent disabilities on the job, and prohibition of the employment of children under 16 years of age in a factory.

He introduced the bill on January 24, while Margaret Sanger's sister Ethel Byrne was on a hunger strike in The Tombs to protest her arrest for distributing information about birth control from their clinic in Brooklyn.

Supporters attacked Shiplacoff for his opposition, with assemblyman Martin G. McCue saying that: It's you and your kind which have changed my views on the subject of compulsory military service.

[15] On May 3, 1917, Shiplacoff introduced a resolution to request Woodrow Wilson to reconsider his appointment of Elihu Root as head of the United States Commission to Russia.

On February 11, 1918, Shiplacoff and his 9 socialist colleagues in the assembly refused to support a resolution of admiration for Abraham Lincoln because it included language expressing gratitude for American soldiers fighting in France.

The Democratic Assemblyman who had introduced the resolution attacked Shiplacoff, stating: Mr. Speaker, I have sat here long enough watching the tactics of some of the members of this House.

In the fall of 1918 Shiplacoff ran as a Socialist candidate for the United States House of Representatives, in part because he could not support his family on his Assembly salary.

On September 23, 1918, Shiplacoff was indicted for three counts of violation of the so-called Espionage Act for a speech against American intervention in Russia made in the Bronx 10 days previously.

He stated that the Assemblymen who had voted to suspend the Socialists were "poor boobs", and that his colleagues on the New York City Board of Aldermen were "a bunch of hypocrites".

He made some remarks on the injustice of the treaty, which led to rumors in the press that the Board of Aldermen might investigate and punish him for what they reportedly saw as pro-Germanism.