How did American Jews respond to the rise of Nazism in the United States during the 1930s? For decades, historians studied the issue, and concluded that American Jews, and in particular, the Jews of Hollywood, lacked the political will and leadership to defend their interests. Recently, however, new documents have emerged that correct that conclusion. Hollywood’s Spies reveals the story of the Jews of Hollywood conducted a covert “fact finding” operation to expose Nazism in the United States between 1933-1941.
Hollywood’s Spies draws on more than 15,000 pages of archival documents, offering a compelling narrative that illuminates the role that Jewish Americans played in combating insurgent Nazism in the United States during the 1930s.Forced undercover by the anti-Semitic climate of the decade, the Jewish leaders of the film industry partnered with civic organizations such as the American Legion to channel information regarding seditious Nazi plots to Congress, the Justice Department, the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department.
Published in 2017, Hollywood’s Spies received critical acclaim. A National Jewish Book Award finalist in 2017, it also made the Los Angeles Times Best Seller and was positively reviewed by the Wall St. Journal. More recently, Rachel Maddow promoted the book on her MSNBC program and in her podcast, Ultra.
Laura Rosenzweig is an American Jewish historian. She has taught American Jewish history at UC Santa Cruz and San Francisco State University. She holds a BA in History from Union College in Schenectady, NY, an MA in Education from the Stanford Graduate School of Education, an MA and a PhD in U.S. History from the University of California at Santa Cruz.
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