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The claim is that Jews emphasized hard work, education and not having children out of wedlock. We are lectured about how blacks should emulate the Jews. Funny but that story leaves out a very real part of Jewish history in America.
A little-known chapter of Jewish American history concerns the Jewish gangsters of the 1920s and 1930s. Some of the men involved had brief gangster careers, using organized crime as a way to get ahead financially, and then dropping out of the game once they had amassed a reasonably large sum of money. Others were more entrenched in the mob; swept up in the speakeasy movement during Prohibition, they continued to make money off of bootlegged liquor, prostitution rings, gambling, racketeering, loan sharking, and a murder-for-hire business popularly known as Murder Inc.
The best known Jewish gangsters were Bugsy Siegel, Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, Longy Zwillman, Moe Dalitz and Meyer Lansky. Though they wielded incredible power in America’s big cities for many years — Meyer Lansky once said that he and his colleagues were, “bigger than U.S. Steel” — their numbers thinned considerably as World War II came to an end. Many were hunted down by the authorities, and jailed or executed, but some were never caught.
None of these men were religiously observant, and they scorned many of the core values of Judaism. But in a few critical moments they lent their power to Jewish causes in America, Nazi Europe, and Palestine. Far from heroes, Jewish mobsters have come to be seen as something of a novelty in Jewish history, though their corrupt legacy continues in Israel, which struggles with Jewish-run organized crime even today.
www.myjewishlearning.com
Jewish Gangsters: A Little Known Chapter in American Jewish History
The best known Jewish gangsters were Bugsy Siegel, Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, Longy Zwillman, Moe Dalitz, and Meyer Lansky.A little-known chapter of Jewish American history concerns the Jewish gangsters of the 1920s and 1930s. Some of the men involved had brief gangster careers, using organized crime as a way to get ahead financially, and then dropping out of the game once they had amassed a reasonably large sum of money. Others were more entrenched in the mob; swept up in the speakeasy movement during Prohibition, they continued to make money off of bootlegged liquor, prostitution rings, gambling, racketeering, loan sharking, and a murder-for-hire business popularly known as Murder Inc.
The best known Jewish gangsters were Bugsy Siegel, Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, Longy Zwillman, Moe Dalitz and Meyer Lansky. Though they wielded incredible power in America’s big cities for many years — Meyer Lansky once said that he and his colleagues were, “bigger than U.S. Steel” — their numbers thinned considerably as World War II came to an end. Many were hunted down by the authorities, and jailed or executed, but some were never caught.
None of these men were religiously observant, and they scorned many of the core values of Judaism. But in a few critical moments they lent their power to Jewish causes in America, Nazi Europe, and Palestine. Far from heroes, Jewish mobsters have come to be seen as something of a novelty in Jewish history, though their corrupt legacy continues in Israel, which struggles with Jewish-run organized crime even today.
Jewish Gangsters: A Little Known Chapter in American Jewish History | My Jewish Learning
A little-known chapter of Jewish American history concerns the Jewish gangsters of the 1920s and 1930s.
www.myjewishlearning.com
