Biography
Abe Brook was born in Odessa, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Worked as a migration: immigrated to us 1914. Immigrated to the United States in 1914.
Joined the Brooklyn branch of the Union of Russian Workers, though he denied membership under interrogation. Around 1918 he married fellow anarchist Clara Kessler. He was arrested in October 1919 while helping organize a protest against the U.S. blockade of Russia, and again during the first Palmer Raids the following month. Deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919, his wife publicly protested the deportations and petitioned to be deported herself, but was denied on account of her US birth.
The congressional digest of Buford deportation cases lists Abe Brook as arrested in New York on November 8, 1919. This is the digest’s immigration-arrest entry; it does not establish an uninterrupted period of detention.
Congressional hearings, April 21–24, 1920, Appendix B, printed p. 150.
