In another moronic ‘Secret Jewish History’ piece published by the Jewish Daily Forward and written by one Emily Schneider. The famous American Second World War icon ‘Rosie the Riveter’ is claimed to be a jewish creation.
Schneider writes that:
‘The Rosie of Norman Rockwell’s 1943 painting “Rosie the Riveter” has become a well-known symbol of feminine strength, but she first entered American consciousness in the music and lyrics of Jewish composer John Jacob Loeb and his collaborator, Redd Evans. Rockwell’s Rosie is distinct from the Rosie of J. Howard Miller’s productivity poster, made in the same year, which exhorted women workers “We Can Do It!” Rockwell’s Rosie is statuesque, her powerful pose the same as that of the prophet Isaiah in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. She is wearing denim coveralls and the safety gear needed for her dangerous work, embodying the same new reality for American women that Loeb and Evans celebrated in their 1942 song “Rosie the Riveter.” Rosie’s deeds were legendary, as she worked day and night shifts to replace male workers: “Berlin will hear about/Moscow will cheer about/Rosie the Riveter,” Evans’s lyrics cheered. Yet most everyone knew a real Rosie and could identify with her commitment in “manning” the production lines. So popular was Loeb and Evans’ song that Rockwell acknowledged the titular Rosie in his portrait of the idealized female war worker, painting her name on his redheaded, muscle-flexing subject’s lunch pail. In 1943, that painting became a magazine cover, and Rosie entered American homes on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.’ (1)
Now the problem here of course is that Schneider is pointedly obscuring the role of Redd Evans in writing the song ‘Rosie the Riveter’ in 1942 with John Jacob Loeb. She is trying to claim in effect that Loeb wrote it alone and not only that she claims he wrote it because he was jewish.
To wit:
‘Did Loeb’s Jewish background play a role in his co-creation of Rosie? The composer was from Chicago, where his father, Jacob Moritz Loeb, was a prominent businessman and philanthropist. The elder Loeb was a founder of the Chicago Hebrew Institute and served as vice-president of the Jewish Welfare Board, an organization that would serve the needs of Jewish soldiers and veterans in both World Wars. According to the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia of 1942, he was involved in adding Hebrew language to the public school curriculum and succeeded in having a school named after Theodore Herzl. Yet the degree to which John Jacob Loeb’s Jewish identity influenced his work during the War remains unknown. “Rosie the Riveter’s” upbeat melody and lyrics don’t appear to reflect the existential fear American Jews felt of Naziism, especially compared to the dire wartime works of Jewish artists like Ben Shahn and Arthur Szyk. Regardless of exactly how intensely he perceived the Nazi threat, Loeb made his stance clear by creating Rosie, who, for all her lighthearted appeal, is still out to crush the Axis.’ (2)
This completely ignores the fact that Redd Evans was also responsible for ‘Rosie the Riveter’, but also the fact that ‘Rosie the Riveter’ was never conceived of by Evans, Loeb or even Rockwell as being jewish.
References
(1) https://forward.com/culture/art/403145/the-secret-jewish-history-of-rosie-the-riveter/
(2) Ibid.