Early Life and Education David Rolfe Graeber (1961–2020) was born in New York City to Kenneth Graeber, a plate stripper originally from Kansas who had fought with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, and Ruth Rubinstein, born in Poland, a garment worker and home-maker who had been the female lead in the 1930s Labor Stage musical, Pins & Needles. Raised in Penn South Coops in Chelsea, Manhattan—described by Business Week magazine as “suffused with radical politics”—Graeber’s upbringing instilled in him a lifelong commitment to leftist ideals and activism. His father, Kenneth G…