Jewish-American Organized Crime

Jewish Mob

Jewish Mafia

Kosher Mob

Kosher Mafia

Yiddish Connection

Kosher Nostra

Undzer Shtik

How the Jewish mob fought antisemitism in the U.S.

• The Jews who fled Europe for the U.S. in the late 1800s were seen as weak, afraid and unable to defend themselves. Many were careful not to rock the boat. They couldn’t shake the memories of their neighbors turning on them.
• Jewish mobsters, however, had no such fear. They stood up for themselves. They showed the world that Jews weren’t weak. Some young Jews loved them for it.
• Jewish immigrants who fled to the U.S. in the 1800s believed they were coming to “the golden medina,” the golden country.
• Jewish gangsters used organized crime to escape the ghetto and move on to lives of violence, politics, and danger
• Larry King described Jewish gangsters as his childhood “heroes.”
• By 1939, there were more than 100 antisemitic organizations in the U.S.
  • Horrified by the Nazis in the streets of New York, Judge Nathan D. Perlman and Rabbi Samuel S. Wise asked Meyer and his men to get involved. They told him he wasn’t allowed to kill anyone — but other than that, all bets were off.
  • they attacked the Bundists
    • brought in
    • Jewish gangsters worked together to fight against the Silvershirts
      • Minneapolis Silvershirts - American fascist and pro-Nazi organization
    • showed up to a Silvershirts meeting dripping in blood and warned them to disband and then fired a bullet into the air
      • after 2 more raids, the Silvershirts never met publically again
  • Judge Perlman offered to pay the mobsters to defend the Jews, but none of them took any money
    • Weiss eventually spoke out against Lansky (who was hurt)
    • went the war ended, Jewish organizations distanced themselves from the mafia, mob

Arnold Rothstein ((January 17, 1882 – November 6, 1928)

• Nickname: "The Brain"
  • because of his skill in organizing criminal enterprises and staying out of jail
• father was well versed in religious and Hebrew classical literature, was a philanthropist, was chairman of the board of New York's Beth Israel Hospital
• American racketeer, crime boss, businessman, and gambler
• allegedly responsible for fixing the 1919 World Series
• Rothstein was the 'Moses of Jewish gangsters', a rich man's son, who showed the young and uneducated hoodlums of the Bowery how to have style.
• He was also a mentor of future crime bosses Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Bugsy Siegel,
• Rothstein was the person to see during prohibition (1920–1933)
  • first person who first realized that Prohibition was a business opportunity, a means to enormous wealth
• The stereotypical attire of the American mobster portrayed in movies can partially trace its roots directly to Rothstein
• character Meyer Wolfsheim, in The Great Gatsby, was based on his life
• Rothstein "transformed organized crime from a thuggish activity by hoodlums into a big business run like a corporation"
• Rothstein refused to pay a large debt resulting from a fixed poker game and was murdered in 1928

Louis “Lepke” Buchalter (1897-1944)

• Born on the Lower East Side; one of eleven children
  • only sibling to embark on a life of crime
• at age 18, embarked on criminal career
• commanded an army of gangsters who extorted millions of dollars from his victims.
• Their weapons were destructive acids, bludgeons, blackjacks, knives, fire, icepicks, and guns.

• For a fee Buchalter protected manufacturers from strikers and unionization of their shops by intimidating workers and using strong-arm tactics.

• He also forced unions to do his bidding by installing his own business agents or by creating rival unions….

• The few men who failed to heed the gang’s orders or who dared to go to the police with their stories suffered “destruction, acid throwing, mayhem and murder.”

• At the pinnacle of his power Buchalter was the feudal lord of New York’s underworld.

• In 1934 Buchalter helped to organize the “Syndicate.”

The Syndicate

• Its creation converted the scattered, unconnected mobs in New York, Chicago, Kansas City, and other cities into a smooth-working, tightly-bound business.
• On the early board of directors of this confederation of crime bosses were Buchalter, Johnny Torrio, Frank Costello, Lucky Luciano, Joe Adonis, “Bugsy” Siegel, and Abner Zwillman.
• They decided that this would be a loose working confederation, with each boss having his own territory and with the regional chiefs sifting together on a board of directors.
• The board would dictate policy and handle all negotiations on the inter-mob level.
• Lepke who campaigned for a special enforcement group to keep the peace and ensure that the Syndicate’s decisions were carried out.
• Sometimes referred to as Murder Incorporated, this crack corps of killers was made up primarily of Jews from the Brownsville, East New York and Ocean Hill neighborhoods of Brooklyn. They became the “official” execution squad for the Syndicate….
• 1941 Lepke was indicted for the killing of Joseph Rosen
• He died at Sing Sing Prison on March 4, 1944.

Moe Dalitz "Mr. Las Vegas" or "Moe" (1899-1889)

• Dalitz was a bootlegger in the mid-1920s.
  • moved alcohol throughout the Midwest until the end of Prohibition
• saught the protection of the largely Jewish Purple Gang of Detroit.
• He was among those who attended a famous 1929 organized crime summit in Atlantic City
• operated "protected" casinos in Ohio and Kentucky
• helped to build modern Las Vegas (first golf course, country club, residential communities)
• began to support charitable causes in the 1950's-1960's
• while he appeared to be free of Mob infiltration, his Las Vegas hotels (Stardust) was synonymous with a massive 'skim' of profits that went to mobsters

Meyer Lansky "The Mob's Accountant", "Secretary of the Treasury" (1902-1983)

• born Maier Suchowlansky, was one of the most important figures in the development of organized crime in New York
• Immigrating with his family from Imperial Russia in 1911, ansky’s work spanned the pre-Prohibition days of the New York City rackets, where he had an early partnership with Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, to the consolidation of the New York Mob under Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, and on to the development of Las Vegas and Havana, Cuba, as “open cities” for the Mob.
• He was a key figure in the Jewish wing of the Italian-Jewish Mob that became known as the American Mafia.
• Associated with the violent bootlegging Bugs and Meyer Gang, which he formed with Siegel,
• Lansky’s close association with Luciano propelled him to the top of Mob leadership in the United States.
• After Prohibition ended in 1933, Lansky successfully parlayed his fortune into gambling interests around the United States
• Lansky’s associates immediately took over the Flamingo upon Siegel’s death
• Lansky allegedly made the famous comment that the American Mafia was “bigger than United States Steel,” at one time the world’s largest corporation.
  • The quote was also used by the fictional character Hyman Roth in the film The Godfather, Part II.
• 1970 Lansky was indicted on federal tax evasion charges.
• He and his family fled to Israel under the Jewish nation’s “right of return,”
  • but that right did not extend to criminals.
  • Lansky returned to the United States and was arrested in the Miami International Airport.
• He continued to be a strong supporter of Israel and of Jewish philanthropies
• Lansky lived in Miami until his death of lung cancer in 1983
• Federal authorities claimed the mobster still had hidden wealth to the tune of $300 million,

The Purple Gang of Detroit

• mostly Jewish gang
• notorious in the 1920s and 1930s for its unrestrained violence in the struggle to gain control of illegal liquor importation and sales during Prohibition and, after Prohibition, gambling and prostitution rackets.

Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (1906-1947)

• son of Jewish immigrants
• raised in crime-ridden section of Williamsburg, Brooklyn
• As a young man, he reportedly extorted protection money from pushcart peddlers on the other side of the East River, in New York City’s Lower East Side
• in 1918, he befriended Meyer Lansky, another tough Jewish kid, with whom he established the Bugs and Meyer Gang.
• “Fellow gang members nicknamed Siegel ‘Bugsy’ in reference to his notoriously quick and violent temper — he was as ‘crazy as a bedbug
• he was associated with Lansky and involved in the "enforcement through murder and intimidation arm" of Luciano's criminal syndicate
• moved to CA in 1936 because NY police were watching him closely
• 1945 - took over construction of a hotel-casino in Las Vegas (The Flamingo)
  • the project did not go well. Originally budgeted at $1.2 million, construction costs soared to $6 million, enraging Siegel’s mobster financiers
• On the evening of June 20, 1947, a hail of gunfire crashed through Hill’s living room window in Beverly Hills, killing Siegel. Literally minutes later, three associates of Lansky entered the Flamingo and announced that they were in charge
• His death has never been solved.

Samuel “Red” Levine: The Orthodox hitman

• had the dubious distinction of being one of the few Orthodox hitmen in history.
• Somehow, Red saw no contradiction between his job and his faith.
  • He wore a kippah, kept kosher, and kept Shabbat.
  • He usually refused to kill on Shabbat — but if he really had to, he would put on his tallit, pray, and then go end someone’s life.

Prohibition

• During prohibition, Jewish gangsters became major operatives in the American underworld and played prominent roles in the distribution of illegal alcohol and the spread of organized crime throughout the United States.
• During this time, Luciano successfully eliminated the Old World Sicilian Mafia bosses like Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano in the 1931 Castellammarese War and took control of the New York Italian Mafia.
  • Luciano did not discriminate against Jews and valued longtime associates such as Meyer Lansky and Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel.
  • Several Jewish gangsters such as Red Levine and Bo Weinberg were used in the war as unsuspected non-Italian hitmen
• During prohibition Moe Dalitz established the Cleveland Syndicate with fellow Jewish gangsters
  • The Syndicate was heavily involved with bootlegging on Lake Erie and developed what was known as the Little Jewish Navy.
  • The Syndicate operated casinos; were early investors in the Desert Inn, in Las Vegas,

the Jewish bootlegging mob known as The Purple Gang dominated the Detroit underworld during Prohibition,

Jewish Bugs and Meyer Mob operated in the Lower East Side of New York City before being absorbed into Murder, Inc. and becoming affiliates of the Italian-American Mafia.

Murder, Inc.

Jewish mobsters such as Meyer Lansky, Mickey Cohen, Harold "Hooky" Rothman, Dutch Schultz, and Bugsy Siegel

Origin

• Jewish-American organized crime was a reflection of the ethnic succession among gangsters, which has tended to follow the immigrant waves in the United States: English, German, Irish, Jewish, Italian, Asian and Latino
• A large wave of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries produced Jewish mobsters such as Max "Kid Twist" Zwerbach, "Big" Jack Zelig, and Vach "Cyclone Louie" Lewis, who competed with and were acknowledged by Italian and Irish gangs.
• gangs specializing in extortion began operating in the heavily Jewish neighborhoods of New York's Lower East Side, most prominently the so-called Yiddish Black Hand headed by Jacob Levinsky, Charles "Charlie the Cripple" Litoffsky, and Joseph Toplinsky during the early 20th century.
• Jewish-American organized crime derived from dislocation and poverty, where language and custom made the community vulnerable to undesirables,
• A pimp was known as a "simcha", a detective as a "shamus", and a loafer as a "trombenik".^[16]
• As the 20th century progressed, Jewish-American mobsters such as "Dopey" Benny Fein and Joe "The Greaser" Rosenzweig entered labor racketeering, hiring out to both businesses and labor unions as strong-arm men. Labor racketeering or "labor slugging"

Mobsters Role in Establishing Israel

• the Jewish community in Israel called on the mob for help

• A representative from an underground Jewish militia turned to Bugsy. Every week until he died in 1947, he sent money to support the cause.

• Fellow gangster Mickey Cohen held huge fundraisers for criminals and celebrities, raising tens of thousands of dollars in a single night. It all went straight to the underground Jewish militias in Palestine.

• The Jewish mob sent more than just money. They sent desperately needed weapons. The United States had imposed an arms embargo against the Middle East — but what was an embargo to a former bootlegger like Meyer Lansky? He and his mob controlled the New York harbors, which quickly became a hub for illegal weapons smuggling to Palestine.

After WWII

• the dominant figures in organized crime tended to be second-generation Italian-Americans and Jewish-Americans.
• As late as the 1960s, Jewish presence in organized crime was still acknowledged as being of significance.
• Jewish-American presence in organized crime began to decline after World War II.

What happened to Jewish-American Crime?

• As American Jews improved their conditions, the Jewish thug and racketeer either disappeared or merged into a more assimilated American crime environment. American Jews quietly buried the public memory of the gangster past; unlike the Mafia, famous Jewish American gangsters like Meyer Lansky, Dutch Schultz and Bugsy Siegel founded no crime families.^[20]
• In more recent years, Jewish-American organized crime has reappeared in the form of Orthodox Jewish, Israeli and Jewish-Russian mafia criminal groups

How it is operating today

• From the 1990s until 2013, members of the New York divorce coercion gang kidnapped and tortured Orthodox Jewish men in troubled marriages to force them into granting religious divorces to their wives, in some cases extorting money from them.
• Described by prosecutors as a "criminal syndicate" that was "akin to the Bloods, the Crips, or the Mafia," the organization, which charged up to $100,000 for their 'services,' was shut down in the wake of a sting operation orchestrated by the FBI.^[3