Michael Meeropol

Michael Meeropol
Michael Meeropol at Pace University in 2011
Born	Michael Rosenberg (1943-03-10) March 10, 1943 (age 74) New York City, New York
Occupation	Professor
Spouse(s)	Ann Karus
Children	2

Michael Meeropol (born Michael Rosenberg on March 10, 1943) is a retired professor of economics. He is the older son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Born in New York City, as Michael Rosenberg, Meeropol spent his early childhood living in New York and attending local school there.

His father Julius, an electrical engineer, and mother Ethel (née Greenglass), a union organizer were members of the Communist Party. When Michael was seven years old, his parents were arrested. In 1953, they were convicted and executed for conspiracy to commit espionage and passing secrets to the Soviet Union.

During the trial, Michael and his younger brother Robert lived first with their maternal grandmother, Tessie Greenglass, until November 1950 when she placed them in the Hebrew Children's Home in the Bronx until the end of the trial in June 1951. They then lived with their paternal grandmother, Sophie Rosenberg, in upper Manhattan until June 1952 at which time they were taken in by family friends, Ben and Sonia Bach, in Toms River, New Jersey, from June 1952 until the December after their parents' executions on June 19, 1953. The Toms River school superintendent "turned the boys away as non-residents."

The brothers were eventually adopted by the lyricist, librettist, and musician Abel Meeropol and his wife Anne, whose first children had been stillborn. Taking their last name, Michael and Robert grew up first in Manhattan and then (after 1961) in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

Michael graduated from Swarthmore College, before going on to graduate work at King's College, Cambridge University. He did his doctorate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he received his PhD in Economics in 1973.