Saul David Alinsky was a Jewish American community organizer and writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing

Community organizing

Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. A core goal of community organizing is to generate durable power for an organization representing the community, allowing it to influence...

, and has been compared in Playboy

Playboy

Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...

 magazine to Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine

Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...

 as being "one of the great American leaders of the nonsocialist left." He is often noted for his book Rules for Radicals

Rules for Radicals

Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals is the last book written by community organizer Saul D. Alinsky shortly before his death in 1972...

.

In the course of nearly four decades of political organizing, Alinsky has received much criticism , but has also gained praise from many left wing public figures.