# Were Ethel and Julius Rosenberg Soviet spies? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 6, 2004, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-ethel-and-julius-rosenberg-soviet-spies/258604 "2004-08-06T12:47:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![SuperNelson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@SuperNelson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuperNelson)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-ethel-and-julius-rosenberg-soviet-spies/258604/41 "2004-08-11T21:30:44Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > (Sad trivia about Ethel: she was under 5"0 tall and 100 lbs, but her little body required 3 jolts of electricity before she stopped breathing- their executions were timed so that they would be dead before the beginning of Sabbath at sundown yet the extra jolts delayed hers until a few minutes after Sabbath had begun. Her guards cried when she was electrocuted, just as they had often done when she sang Julius to sleep in the death house.) I don’t want to hijack this, but why was it important that the Rosenbergs both be dead before sundown? ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-ethel-and-julius-rosenberg-soviet-spies/258604/42 "2004-08-11T23:08:09Z")
> [@SuperNelson](#): > > I don’t want to hijack this, but why was it important that the Rosenbergs both be dead before sundown? So they would not have been executed on the Jewish Sabbath, something that would have, if you’ll pardon the phrase, added insult to injury. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-ethel-and-julius-rosenberg-soviet-spies/258604.md?page=2)