Rosen, Robert N. 1947-

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Rosen, Robert N. 1947-

PERSONAL:

Born December 19, 1947, in Charleston, SC; married; wife's name Susan; children: three. Education: University of Virginia, B.A., 1969; Harvard University, M.A., 1970; University of South Carolina School of Law, J.D., 1973.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Rosen Law Firm, LLC, The People's Building, 18 Broad St., Ste. 201, Charleston, SC 29401; fax: 843-377-1709.

CAREER:

Writer, historian, lecturer, and attorney. Called to the bar of South Carolina, 1973. City of Charleston, SC, assistant corporation counsel, 1976-85, general counsel, housing authority, 1984-2003; Charleston County School District, general counsel, 1982-2003; attorney in private practice, 2003—. Member of the board of the South Carolina Historical Society and the Historic Charleston Foundation.

MEMBER:

American Bar Association, South Carolina Bar Association, Charleston County Bar Association, South Carolina Trial Lawyers Association, South Carolina Supreme Court Historical Society.

AWARDS, HONORS:

American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, fellow; named to Best Lawyers in America.

WRITINGS:

A Short History of Charleston, Lexikos (San Francisco, CA), 1982, 2nd edition, Peninsula Press (Charleston, SC), 1992.

Confederate Charleston: An Illustrated History of the City and the People during the Civil War, University of South Carolina Press (Columbia, SC), 1994.

The Jewish Confederates, University of South Carolina Press (Columbia, SC), 2000.

(With Solomon Breibart and Jack Bass) Explorations in Charleston's Jewish History, The History Press (Charleston, SC), 2005.

Saving the Jews: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust, foreword by Gerhard Weinberg, afterword by Alan M. Dershowitz, Thunder's Mouth Press (New York, NY), 2006.

South Carolina Law Review, member of editorial board, 1973; Family Advocate, member of editorial board.

SIDELIGHTS:

Attorney and historian Robert N. Rosen is a noted family law practitioner, personal injury lawyer, and trial attorney in Charleston, South Carolina. Along with his wife, Susan, he is the owner of the Rosen Law Firm, which specializes in accident and personal injury law. In addition to his successful legal practice, Rosen is also a historian who has written several books and articles on the history of Charleston, South Carolina, and the south.

In The Jewish Confederates, Rosen explores the lives of Jews in the American South from the 1700s until the years beyond the Civil War. These southern Jews, up to 25,000 in all, recognized and accepted the ramifications of living in the slaveholding Confederacy. When the call came for soldiers to defend the south during the Civil War, young Jewish men were eager and ready to enlist. Rosen looks at the lives of a number of individuals, including noted Jewish senators, Judah Philip Benjamin of Louisiana and David Levy Yulee of Florida. He also recounts the lives of a number of other Jewish families and citizens, including businessmen, military officers and enlisted men, rabbis, doctors and nurses, and politicians. Rosen speculates that Jews may have found the south more tolerant and hospitable to them than the north, which would account for their loyalty to a society that practiced slavery. He also points out some of the negatives facing southern Jews, such as the increase in anti-Semitism as the war continued on. Leonard Dinnerstein, in a review in the Journal of Southern History, called the book "an eye-opener. Never before have I read such a thorough, deeply researched, and engaging monograph on the broadest aspects of Jewish involvement in the war." Rosen's book "represents one of the most provocative treatments ever written about the history of southern Jewry," remarked Robert E. May, writing in Shofar. "His coverage is so broad," May continued, "even reaching families living in obscure towns and villages, that by the end of the book one feels introduced literally to every Jew in Dixie." Booklist critic Jay Freeman concluded that "for Civil War enthusiasts and those interested in ethnic history, this will be a fulfilling read."

Rosen approaches Jewish history in its darker period in Saving the Jews: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust. Rosen seeks to rebut the conventional wisdom that Roosevelt and his administration had no concern for the fate of Jews in Europe, and that their attitudes were fueled by simple politics or actual anti-Semitism. "Rosen has written a passionate, well-researched, and convincing response" to this inaccurate historical bromide, commented Jay Freeman in Booklist. Rosen notes that Jews occupied prominent positions in the Roosevelt administration, nullifying accusations that the president and his staff were anti-Semites. Roosevelt himself had been a vocal critic of the persecution of European Jews since the late 1930s, Rosen states. Roosevelt vowed to hold Nazi leaders responsible for their participation in the death camps. Rosen also covers some of Roosevelt's more controversial decisions, including his refusal to bomb Auschwitz because it would have led to the deaths of hundreds of innocents. Freeman concluded that Rosen's work will not end the debate over the controversies of the Roosevelt administration, but it "will help balance the scales."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Enterprise, April, 2001, Robert Cheeks, review of The Jewish Confederates, p. 52.

Booklist, October 15, 2000, Jay Freeman, review of The Jewish Confederates, p. 415; April 15, 2006, Jay Freeman, review of Saving the Jews: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust, p. 25.

Fort Wayne Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, IN), September 11, 2006, Alan Cooperman, "Holocaust Book Inspires Epic Clash," review of Saving the Jews.

Journal of Southern History, August, 2002, Leonard Dinnerstein, review of The Jewish Confederates, p. 715.

Library Journal, September 15, 2000, David Alperstein, review of The Jewish Confederates, p. 94.

Publishers Weekly, September 25, 2000, review of The Jewish Confederates, p. 97; March 13, 2006, review of Saving the Jews, p. 54.

Shofar, spring, 2002, Robert E. May, review of The Jewish Confederates, p. 160.