New York City Council Honors Ethel Rosenberg

The New York City Council this week honored convicted spy Ethel Rosenberg for "demonstrating great bravery" during a 1935 strike against the National New York Packing and Supply Co., the New York Post reports. 

Rosenberg, along with her husband, Julius, and brother David Greenglass, were convicted of passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union in 1951. The Rosenbergs were executed in 1956, and Greenglass served 10 years of a 15-year sentence.

The council issued two proclamations, saying that Rosenberg was "wrongfully" executed for helping her husband. Decoded Russian cables released in the 1990s indicated that Julius Rosenberg passed secrets to the USSR, but they do not mention his wife.

"A lot of hysteria was created around anti-communism and how we had to defend our country, and these two people were traitors and we rushed to judgment and they were executed," Councilman Daniel Dromm, a Queens Democrat said.

Three members of the council joined Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer in issuing the proclamations honoring Rosenberg on the 100th anniversary of her birth. She was a resident of New York's Lower East Side.

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