![\"Julius](\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-282pinsker\/files\/2014\/11\/untitled-2.png\")
<\/a>Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (Image Courtesy of Wikipedia)<\/p><\/div>\n
Ivy Meeropol, granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, directed and produced the documentary, \u00a0\u201cHeir to an Execution\u201d (2004). The documentary presents a first hand account of Ivy as she investigates what actually happened to her family back in 1953. She interviews members of her own family including her father, Michael Meeropol who is the son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Ivy also interviews several friends of her grandparents colleagues including, Miriam Moskowitz and Morty Sorbell who both have a first hand account of the events surrounding what happened to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.<\/p>\n
The documentary strikingly makes evident the significance of the involvement of Jews in politics during this time period. As Ivy interviewed Morton Sobell he spoke about the feeling of having, \u201csocial responsibility\u201d for others during the economic struggles surrounding WWII. He describes how Julius and Ethel, \u201cdreamed of a socialist world, with no hunger, and that the Soviet Union was a model for that world.\u201d When speaking to my grandfather Sheldon Lyons, who grew up during this time period in Brooklyn, he told me that one of the reasons so many Jews were involved in the communist movement was because they saw the effects socialism had on their homelands like Poland and Russia and were inspired by the results of this \u201ccollectivism\u201d to help assist the poor. He also made a clear distinction that the wealthy, established Jews did not follow this rhetoric and there was a clear class distinction between those who supported socialism and those who did not.<\/p>\n
This distinction between the two classes of Jews is evident in \u201cHeir to an Execution\u201d as well. Ivy makes a clear point to highlight the harsh decisions of Jewish lawyers and judges had in the trials of Julius and Ethel. In fact, Ivy makes a point of saying that a Catholic judge, responsible for giving custody of Ivy\u2019s father and her brother to their grandmother, which was their \u201cfirst victory in court.\u201d This raises the question, why were some Jews so hard on Julius and Ethel? In response to this question, my grandfather said that when the verdict came out that the Rosenberg\u2019s were Soviet spy\u2019s, his father who had served in WWI for the Untied States felt that he was betrayed by the Rosenberg\u2019s. He, like many others felt betrayed because he had supported the United States in war and at home but now people would associate him with traitors. All of a sudden, a new wave of anti-Semitism rose in the United States in which people blamed Jews for being socialists and aligning with the Soviets.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Sen. Joseph McCarthy (Image Courtesy of Wikipedia)<\/p><\/div>\n
McCarthyism, which gets its name from Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy, led an effort beginning in 1950 that accused many Americans of supporting communism and engaging in treason. McCarthy first unveiled this rhetoric in a speech in February of 1950 in which he stated he had a list of 205 known Communists who were, \u201cworking and shaping policy\u201d (History.com) in the US State Department. McCarthyism was especially anti-Semitic in its treatment of the television industry and Hollywood, places that many Jews worked in. An example of this McCarthyism targeting the entertainment industry and thus targeting Jews can be seen in this anti-Communist poster from the 1950s below. McCarthy was also responsible what is known as the \u201cHollywood Blacklist\u201d which was the denying of employment to screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other U.S. entertainment professionals because of their suspected political beliefs or associations.<\/p>\n