He helped farmworkers organize in Florida. He also wrote poetry. Joseph Kaplan dies at 90.
Joseph Kaplan was a published poet. He was an accomplished labor lawyer for nearly five decades. And he was a devoted father and public servant.
In his role as a lawyer, he did pro bono work. Among those he represented: labor leader Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers Union. Kaplan was on the front lines during the drive to unionize orange groves in Central Florida. Chavez was a labor activist focused on improving the lives and working conditions of farmworkers.
Kaplan, a longtime resident of Miami Beach and Coral Gables, died Thursday at age 90.
“He was a guy who was very much committed to the working man,” said one of his sons, Mitchell Kaplan, owner of Books & Books and co-founder of the Miami Book Fair.
The timing of his father’s death is “particularly hard for me ... happening during the Miami Book Fair,” Kaplan said.
Joseph Kaplan was an author himself. His book of poems, “From Albany Park,” was published in 1999.
The elder Kaplan was born in Boston in 1929 and moved to Chicago in 1933. He attended the University of Illinois after graduating from high school. He then attended Chicago-Kent College of Law until 1950, when, as a reserve officer in the Air Force, he was called to active duty during the Korean War.
During the war, Kaplan served as a counter-intelligence investigator in the Air Force Office of Special Investigation until he was discharged in 1953. After the Air Force, Kaplan moved to Miami to attend the University of Miami College of Law.
That’s where he met the love of his life, Helen Sir. They were married in October 1953. Together they had four children. The couple lived on Hibiscus Island on the MacArthur Causeway for nearly 60 years before moving to Coral Gables.
After graduating in 1954 with his law degree, he began representing unions and union members including firefighters, government workers and law enforcement personnel. He was also a magistrate in Miami Beach.
“My father fought all the good fights,” said his daughter, Susan, adding that she remembers walking the picket lines with him as a child. “He raised us to follow our passion.”
In addition to his son Mitchell, and daughter Susan, Joseph Kaplan is survived by his wife, Helen, and children Marcy and Robert, as well as 12 grandchildren.
The family will have a private, graveside ceremony on Sunday, with a memorial service to be scheduled at a later date.
This story was originally published November 21, 2019 at 4:25 PM.
