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	Abel Meeropol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Abel Meeropol (1903 - 1986) was an American writer best known under his pseudonym Lewis Allen, under which he wrote the anti-lynching poem Strange Fruit which he subsequently set to music and was famously performed by Billie Holiday.
		Meeropol was the writer of countless poems and songs, including the Sinatra hit The House I Live In.
		Billie Holiday (or rather her ghostwriter) claimed, in Lady Sings the Blues, that she cowrote the music to the song with Meeropol and Sonny White, but in fact, Meeropol was the sole writer of both lyrics and melody to this haunting plea for civil rights.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Abel_Meeropol (200 words)

	Independent Lens . STRANGE FRUIT . The Film \| PBS
		While many people assume that the song "Strange Fruit" was written by Holiday herself, it actually began as a poem by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher and union activist from the Bronx who later set it to music.
		Meeropol and his wife Anne are also notable because they adopted Robert and Michael Rosenberg, the orphaned children of the executed communists Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
		The story of composer Abel Meeropol doesn't end with "Strange Fruit." Working in Hollywood six years later, Meeropol penned his other well-known composition, the patriotic, Oscar-winning paean to tolerance "The House I Live In," which was performed by Frank Sinatra in a film short in 1945 and has experienced a revival since September 11, 2001.
	www.pbs.org /independentlens/strangefruit/film.html (513 words)

	Interview with Robert Meeropol by Scott Satterwhite
		We ultimately won that custody battle and in the fall of 1954 we moved in with Abel and Ann Meeropol permanently.
		Abel Meeropol was a songwriter and a high school teacher who quit his job to become a full-time songwriter.
		I remember when I saw the film in the theater, when it came to the point in the documentary where you said that the Meeropols weren't your birth parents, but you were the son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the entire audience gasped at once.
	www.angelfire.com /zine2/robertmeeropol (6519 words)

	"Strange Fruit": the story of a song
		Meeropol credited Holiday for her unique and influential version of the song, but he insisted on setting the record straight when Lady Sings the Blues appeared in the 1950s.
		Meeropol was one of the majority on the left who went along with the CP at this period.
		Meeropol himself is best known, aside from “Strange Fruit,” for The House I Live In,”; a complacent hymn to American brotherhood that he wrote with Earl Robinson and that was turned into a short film with Frank Sinatra in 1945.
	www.wsws.org /articles/2002/feb2002/frut-f08.shtml (2204 words)

	Robert Meeropol - San Diego Jewish Journal
		As the youngest son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed as "atomic spies" by the United States government in 1953, Meeropol was rejected by other members of his family, kicked out of elementary school for being a Rosenberg and shuttled between orphanages before finally experiencing stability as the adopted son of Abel and Anne Meeropol.
		After remaining anonymous for the first 30 years of his life, Meeropol and his older brother Michael decided to go public with their parentage in 1974 in response to the unauthorized publication of their parent's prison correspondence by trial lawyer Luis Nitzer.
		Meeropol sees similarities between his parent's case and the case of Zacharias Moussaui, the alleged 20th 9-11 hijacker.
	www.sdjewishjournal.com /stories/nov03_2.html (1123 words)

	Strange Fruit
		Abel Meeropol, who is also known as the man who adopted the children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg after their execution, originally wrote the lyrics as a poem, "Bitter Fruit," for a teachers' union.
		These poignant words were written in the late 30's by liberal, Jewish, New York educator Abel Meeropol (under the name of Lewis Allan) as a song to protest one of the worst examples of human behavior - the lynch mob.
		The song was first performed by Meeropol's wife at a school function and came to the attention of fl musicians, especially Billy Holiday, who brought it to national attention.
	www.reelingreviews.com /strangefruit.htm (833 words)

	The House I Live In by Frank Sinatra Songfacts
		Meeropol felt they were wrongly accused, and he and his wife adopted their 2 sons when they were put to death.
		The sons, Michael and Robert, took Meeropol's last name (it was easier to be a Meeropol than a Rosenberg at the time), and have spent their adult lives trying to clear their birth parents' names.
		When Meeropol saw the film, he became enraged when he learned they deleted the second stanza of his song, which he felt was crucial to the meaning.
	www.songfacts.com /detail.php?id=2306 (670 words)

	CNN.com - Confessions of a Rosenberg grandchild - Jan. 21, 2004
		Ivy Meeropol's "Heir to an Execution" chronicles her effort to come to terms with the lives and deaths of her father's parents, executed as traitors in 1953 after being accused of relaying the secret of the atomic bomb to the Soviets.
		The Meeropols are convinced Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were railroaded, yet the film makes clear that the family believes Julius may have been a spy and that Ethel likely would have been aware of her husband's activities.
		Ivy Meeropol visits the Rosenbergs' graves and has a tearful reunion with a distant cousin after other members of the long-divided Rosenberg family refused to meet with her.
	www.cnn.com /2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/21/sundance.rosenbergs.ap (924 words)

	Harvey Tobkes : SCHOOL DAYS
		Meeropol and his wife, Anne (who first sang it publicly), were deeply involved in union politics and social activism.
		The single reached number 16 on the pop charts without radio airplay, and became so associated with Holiday that when her autobiography suggested Meeropol had written the lyrics for her, and that she and collaborator Sonny White had composed the music, it set off a controversy that persists today.
		Katz’s interest in “Strange Fruit” was piqued by a letter from Meeropol’s adopted sons to The New York Times Book Review about the issue of authorship; that they’re the natural children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg is only one of many intriguing facts Katz explores.
	tobkes.othellomaster.com /archives/2005/07/11/school-days (445 words)

	Heir to an Execution: Rosenberg's Granddaughter
		Meeropol will probably be labeled an apologist for her refusal to focus on what we now know (or think we know) about Julius Rosenberg’s espionage career.
		Meeropol has found to illustrate these narratives, her interviews remind us of a time when thousands of young Jewish-Americans proudly dedicated their lives to the cause of universal social justice.
		Meeropol asks in attempting to assess the consequences of the way her grandparents chose to live and die.
	www.films42.com /columns/rosenberg.asp (1082 words)

	Workers World June 26, 2003: How a Rosenberg son survived the 1950s
		Robert Meeropol, the younger son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, has written a book about what it was like growing up with the secret knowledge that his biological parents had been executed by the U.S. government, allegedly for conspiring to pass atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.
		Meeropol has an engaging writing style, very honest about himself, quite the opposite of the closed and cautious young boy he describes in the first part of the book.
		Robert Meeropol overcomes the worst thing that could happen to a small child--the state murder of his parents--and develops into a feisty 1960s radical with all the energy of that period, channeled by his basic anti-capitalist outlook.
	www.workers.org /ww/2003/meeropol0626.php (597 words)

	JewishJournal.com
		Meeropol and his wife had adopted Robert and Michael after their birth parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, were executed on spying charges in 1953, the letter revealed.
		From the Meeropols, Katz learned that the author of “Strange Fruit” was actually a jaunty fellow with a thin mustache and a keen sense of humor.
		According to Michael Meeropol, his father was prouder of “Strange Fruit” than “of all the things he ever did.” He often played the song for his father when he was an Alzheimer’s patient in a nursing home before his death in 1986.
	www.jewishjournal.com /home/preview.php?id=9964 (893 words)

	Strange Fruit \| PopMatters Television Review
		Abel Meeropol's place in that history, however, has been obscured by general misconceptions about the authorship of the song, as well as Holiday's own assertions in later years, including her claim that the song was written specifically for her and that she put it to music.
		Meeropol himself scored the song and his wife Anne was the first to perform it in the late 1930s.
		The artistic partnership between Holiday and Meeropol, however strained at times, is symbolic of the potential for two activists from different backgrounds to work together to promote religious and political freedom, and freedom from the fear of racial persecution.
	www.popmatters.com /tv/reviews/s/strange-fruit.shtml (977 words)

	Bigroaphies of key figures in the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-12)
		Michael and Robert Meeropol are the sons of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
		Bloch placed the Rosenberg's children with Abel and Anne Meeropol, and in 1957 the couple legally adopted the boys.
		Time Magazine recently picked "Strange Fruit" as "the song of the century.") With a new family and a new last name the boys were able to try to live a normal life.
	www.law.umkc.edu /faculty/projects/ftrials/rosenb/ROS_BMER.HTM (431 words)

	People's Weekly World - A son’s story of survival
		Meeropol, the younger son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 for “stealing the secret of the atomic bomb,” has written An Execution in the Family to tell his story his way.
		The book details the effects of the childhood trauma of his parents’ frame-up and execution during the anti-Communist hysteria of the 1950s, the brothers’ adoption by Anne and Abel Meeropol, Robert’s early political activism and the personal struggle that ultimately led him to found the Rosenberg Fund for Children (RFC).
		Meeropol is rightly proud of what the RFC has accomplished in just 13 years of existence.
	www.pww.org /article/articleprint/3787 (492 words)

	Wolf Entertainment Guide
		Katz demonstrates that Meeropol wrote the song before it was ever shown to Holiday, but that she gave the impression it was written especially for her.
		Yet another fascinating part of the film is the recognition of Meeropol and his wife Anne as the parents who adopted the orphaned sons of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, whose 1953 execution on charges of conspiracy to commit espionage despite their pleas of innocence and world-wide appeals for clemency still reverberates with controversy.
		Some of the film's most moving moments come when Michael and Robert Meeropol, while also referring to their birth parents, talk affectionately of Abel Meeropol as their father and reveal much about his personality, his intellect, his humor and the way he and Anne Meeropol raised them.
	www.wolfentertainmentguide.com /pub/filmsearch.asp?record=1930 (459 words)

	[Hpn] [Fwd: Best Book on 60s, by Guess Who?] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-12)
		Only six when his mother and father were executed, he got no politics from them, and not too much in depth from the Meeropols, who were Communists of the gut rather than the intellectual variety.
		Abel disagreed with Michael's criticism of the Party, but Robert agreed.
		His comment on the early part of their marriage is good writing: "We wore our rough edges smooth as we tumbled and bounced against each other through the white-water rapids of relationship building." One of Meeropol's qualities is his ability to see consequences where others act on emotion.
	projects.is.asu.edu /pipermail/hpn/2003-November/007757.html (1275 words)

	documentaries.org : all shows
		While many people mistakenly assume that "Strange Fruit" was written by Holiday herself, the words and music were actually written by Abel Meeropol, a New York City public school teacher and a Jew of Russian immigrant origin who published music under the name Lewis Allan.
		Meeropol's other best known composition was "The House I Live In", most famously performed by Frank Sinatra.
		Abel Meeropol is also known for having adopted with his wife Anne the orphaned children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953.
	www.documentaries.org /shows/strangefruit.html (294 words)

	Democracy Now Transcript Archives
		Robert Meeropol:: Well, we went through a pretty bad time for four years, we were ultimately adopted by Abel and Ann Meeropol, the author of the words and music of "Strange Fruit." we were raised in their household, our names were changed.
		Robert Meeropol:: It was that David Greenglass was working at Los Alamos where a bomb was being fabricated as a sergeant in the Army during World War II as a machinist.
		We heard your father, Robert Meeropol, describe being incognito really not telling anyone in his life, his parents knew and few of their close friends who he was, that he was a Rosenberg until he was an adult.
	www.democracynow.org /transcripts/rosenberg.shtml (5193 words)

	Movies Other\| (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-12)
		Joel Katz’s film follows the history and cultural impact of the anti-lynching song of the title ("Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees"), from its composition in 1939 by the writer, teacher, and political activist Abel Meeropol through its popularization, most famously by Billie Holiday.
		There is, of course, a lot about Holiday here, including a powerful segment of her singing the song on a BBC television broadcast just months before she died.
		Especially when you consider that Abel and Anne Meeropol adopted Robert and Michael after the boys’ birth parents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were executed in 1953.
	www.bostonphoenix.com /boston/movies/trailers/documents/02232279.htm (244 words)

	wbur.org Arts - Music - Strange Fruit
		Meeropol died in 1986, at age 83, in Springfield, Massachusetts.
		For example, Meeropol was called before a state committee investigating communist influence in the New York schools.
		The continued relevance of the song is caught during a scene in which African-American high school students, attending Meeropol's alma mater, deliver a poignant and intelligent close reading of his poem.
	www.wbur.org /arts/2003/49249_20030221.asp (908 words)

	TIME.com: Generation on Trial? -- May 5, 1975 -- Page 3
		"It feels like an unnatural act to me." He is talking about Songwriter Abel Meeropol and his wife Anne, who lost their own two children at birth and took the frightened Rosenberg boys to live with them six months after the execution.
		Anne, who died last year, and Abel, now living in Miami, were the best thing that could have happened to the orphans.
		Last year the Meeropols allowed their cover to be completely blown in an illustrated New York Times article.
	www.time.com /time/magazine/article/0,9171,913052-3,00.html (720 words)

	Real History Archives Rosenberg Collection: 'A Promise for Tomorrow' - Deconstructing the Rosenberg Case by Arlene Tyner
		Lewis Allan was the pen name used by Abel Meeropol (1), the adoptive father of Michael and Robert Rosenberg, whose parents were so vengefully and needlessly executed as "atom spies" by the federal government on June 19, 1953.
		Twenty years later Michael and Robert Meeropol (whose names were legally changed) relinquished their anonymity to invigorate the decades-old movement struggling to reopen their parents' case.
		As Robert and Michael Meeropol, they were raised in the household of the man whose song demonstrates that one could be both a communist and a patriot.
	www.webcom.com /~lpease/collections/disputes/promise.htm (4160 words)

	Stranger than Fiction -- In These Times
		Meeropol, active in both the Communist Party and the formidable Local 5 of the New York Teachers Union, composed the song in 1935 in response to a lynching photograph he had seen.
		Meeropol registered “Strange Fruit” under the pseudonym “Lewis Allan,” a conflation of the names of his two biological sons, who were stillborn.
		In retrospect, it seems an ironic tribute, given that Meeropol is perhaps best known today for adopting the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, American Communists who were executed on June 19, 1953, for allegedly supplying atomic bomb plans to the Soviet Union.
	www.inthesetimes.com /site/main/article/64 (855 words)

	The Guardian
		The poem was set to music by Meeropol and sung by his wife Anne at Communist Party functions and other progressive gatherings.
		Abel Meeropol's other best known composition is The House I Live In, about the multi-cultural mix of the USA, sung with irony and power by Paul Robeson and with patriotic fervour by Frank Sinatra.
		Abel and Anne Meeropol are also known for having adopted the orphaned children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953.
	www.cpa.org.au /garchve03/1136cult.html (869 words)

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