Jennifer Meeropol, RFC Executive Director, granddaughter of Ethel & Julius Rosenberg
Photo By Henry Amistadi
Bio: Jennifer Meeropol is the Executive Director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children (RFC). The RFC is a public foundation created to honor Jenn’s grandparents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, by assisting the families of today’s activists who are experiencing repression.
The Fund aids children in the U.S. whose parents have been attacked while struggling to combat racism and police brutality, safeguard the environment, preserve civil liberties, wage peace, and organize on behalf of immigrants, workers, political prisoners, the LGBTQ community, and others whose rights are under threat. The RFC also helps young activists (up to age 25) who are fighting for progressive causes and have been targeted because of their organizing. Since its start in 1990, the RFC has awarded more than $7.5 million and helps hundreds of children and youth each year.
Before joining the RFC in 2007, Jenn received her B.A. from Harvard University and her M.A. from Brown University. Jenn then spent almost a decade administering programs in the non-profit and higher education sectors, including as Program Manager at Campus Compact, a coalition of nearly 1,100 college and university presidents committed to fulfilling the public purposes of higher education. She has authored or edited several journals and books including The Community’s College: Indicators of Engagement at Two Year Colleges and One with the Community: Indicators of Engagement at Minority Serving Institutions.
Robert Meeropol, RFC Founder, son of Ethel & Julius Rosenberg
Bio: Robert Meeropol is the younger son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. In 1953, when he was six years old, the United States Government executed his parents for “conspiring to steal the secret of the atomic bomb.”
For over 50 years he has been a progressive activist, author and public speaker. In the 1970’s he and his brother, Michael, successfully sued the FBI and CIA to force the release of 300,000 previously secret documents about their parents. He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in Anthropology from the University of Michigan, graduated law school in 1985, and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar.
In 1990, after leaving private practice, Robert founded the Rosenberg Fund for Children and served as its Executive Director until he retired from that position when his daughter took over the Fund’s leadership in 2013. Robert remains on the RFC’s Board of Directors.
The RFC is a public foundation that provides for the educational and emotional needs of children in this country whose parents have been harassed, injured, jailed, lost jobs or died in the course of their progressive activities. The Fund also supports youth who have been targeted for their own activism. In its history, the RFC has awarded $8 million in grants to benefit thousands of children and youth in this country.
Robert’s memoir, AN EXECUTION IN THE FAMILY, was published by St. Martin’s Press on the 50th anniversary of his parents’ executions. The book details his odyssey from Rosenberg son to political activist and founder of the Rosenberg Fund for Children. His blog, Still Out on a Limb, is at robertmeeropol.com/blog.
In 2016 – in the wake of overwhelming new evidence showing that the U.S. government knew Ethel was not a spy and executed her anyway – Robert and his brother Michael Meeropol, launched a nationwide petition campaign asking President Obama to exonerate their mother. The effort garnered 60,000 petition signers, and generated extensive and favorable coverage by many of the most respected and far-reaching media outlets around the U.S. and internationally.
The exoneration campaign succeeded in dramatically moving the needle on the public’s understanding of how the government wronged Ethel, and why, and educated the public about the dangers of unchecked government power, especially in times of heightened concern about national security.