"She also joined the May 19th Communist Organization, which worked in support of the Black Liberation Army and its offshoots (including assistance in armored truck robberies), the Weather Underground and other revolutionary organizations.[11] Rosenberg was charged with a role in the 1983 bombing of the United States Capitol Building, the U.S. National War College and the New York Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, but the charges were dropped as part of a plea deal by other members of her group.[7][12]

Arrested for explosives possession in November 1984 after two years underground, she was convicted by a jury in March 1985, and given a 58-year-sentence. Supporters said this was sixteen times the national average for such offenses.[13] Her lawyers contend that, had the case not been politically charged, Rosenberg would have received a five-year sentence.[6]

...

Rosenberg's sentence was commuted by President Bill Clinton on January 20, 2001, his last day in office, to the more than 16 years' time served. Her commutation produced a wave of criticism by police and New York elected officials.[21]

After her release, Rosenberg became the communications director for the American Jewish World Service, an international development and human rights organization, based in New York City. She also continued her work as an anti-prison activist, and taught literature at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. After teaching for four semesters there as an adjunct instructor, the CUNY administration, responding to political pressure, forced John Jay College to end its association with Rosenberg, and her contract with the school was allowed to expire without her being rehired.[22]

In 2004 Hamilton College offered her a position to teach a for-credit month-long seminar, "Resistance Memoirs: Writing, Identity and Change." Some professors, alumni and parents of students objected and as a result of the ongoing protests, she declined the offer.[23]

As of 2020, Rosenberg serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of Thousand Currents, a non-profit foundation that sponsors the fundraising and does administrative work for the Black Lives Matter Global Network, among other clients.[24] "

The Original ‘Antifa’ Was A Jewish Anti-Nazi Militia

While watching the recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia – the violence that erupted between marching neo-Nazis and Antifa protesters – I can’t help but think back to what was the original “Antifa”, a group of Jews, whom my father told me about from his childhood, growing up as a poor Jewish kid in Newark, New Jersey.

My father was born in 1904 in what was then Kishinev, Russia, and what is now Chisinau, Moldova. Before he was a year old, his family immigrated to the US. Like many Jewish families at the time, they were fleeing the murderous atmosphere created by the Kishinev pogrom of 1903. My dad grew up in the tenements of Newark, without much money but with a wealth of stories about the characters and goings on of the Jewish neighborhoods of Newark of that era.

The Antifa’s role in fighting Nazis in the streets reminded me of my dad’s story about his much beloved but “kind of crooked” first cousin, Jake “Cocky Jake” (and sometimes, “Jack”) Rothseid.

Anti-fascist brawlers — many of them communists, socialists or anarchists — began organizing in the 1920s and ’30s to oppose the rising dictatorships in Italy, Germany and Spain through demonstrations and street fights.