But He Was Good to His Mother - The Lives and Crimes of Jewish Gangsters

by Robert Rockaway

  2. The following excerpt is from SAC, New York, to Director FBI, 21 June 1962, FBI File 92-2831.

  3. Ibid.

  4. For the life and gangbusting career of Thomas E. Dewey, see Thomas E. Dewev, Twenty Against the Underworld (Garden City, New York, 1974); and Richard Norton Smith, Thomas E. Dewey and His Times (New York, 1982).

  5. Gosch, Hammer, pp. 140-141; Eisenberg et al., pp. 88-89.

  6. The material on Gordon appeared in the New York Times, 28 April 1933, 2 December 1933, 7 December 1933, 9 December 1933, 9 October 1942; see also Fried, pp. 178-181.

  7. Sifakis, Encyclopedia of American Crime, p. 291.

  8. Ibid.

  9. The material on Stacher is taken from, Eisenberg et al., and Lacey.

  10. Material about Stacher’s life in Israel comes from interviews with “Mervin,” an alias for an individual who prefers to remain anonymous. Concerning Stacher’s trial against Porush, see Eisenberg et al., pp. 297298.

  11. Lacey, p. 334.

  12. The FBI Files contain a great deal of hearsay and unsubstantiated accusations from anonymous correspondents.

  13. David Stern, interview by author, Tel-Aviv, Israel, 3 September 1992.

  14. Yedioth Ahronoth (Hebrew), 17 March 1972. The plot to kidnap Meyer Lansky was disclosed to me by a source close to the murdered man, Ilan Asherov. This source prefers to remain anonymous.

  15. Hinkes, interview.

  16. Jack Guzik to Sanford Bates, 18 June 1934, Jack Guzik file, Records of the Bureau of Prisons, Notorious Offenders File.

  17. Ibid.

  18. Max Guzik to Parol Officer, 29 September 1933, Ibid.

  19. Ibid.

  20. Herman Lando, M.D. to Parol Officer, 9 October 1933, Ibid.

  21. Rabbi M. Kohn to Parol Agent, 11 October 1933, Ibid.

  22. Mike Lyman to Honorable Judge Woods, 18 September 1933, Ibid.

  23. Fred Kohler to Board of Paroles, 23 October 1933, Ibid.

  24. Hearing in the case of Jack Guzik, 12 December 1933, Ibid.

  25. New York Times, 22 February 1956; Murray, p. 334.

  26. FBI File 60-1501; New York Times, 10 June 1947.

  27. Joselit, p. 123.

  28. Turkus and Feder, pp. 336-337.

  29. New York Daily Mirror, 10 June 1947; Sifakis, Encyclopedia of American Crime, p. 653.

  30. Turkus and Feder, p. 349.

  31. Ibid., p. 350.

  32. New York Times, 5 March 1944.

  33. Turkus and Feder, p. 350; New York Mirror, 22 August 1939.

  34. New York Times, 29 September 1939.

  35. Gosch, Hammer, pp. 239-245.

  36. Turkus and Feder, p. 357.

  37. Time, 4 September 1939, p. 12.

  38. FBI File 65-1501.

  39. New York Times, 2 January 1940.

  40. Ibid., 6 April 1940.

  41. New York Times, 19 April 1940.

  49. New York Daily News, 5 March 1944.

  50. Ibid.

  51. New York Journal American, 5 March 1944.

  Chapter Six: The Hit Parade

  1. Ed Reid, Ovid Demaris, The Green Felt Jungle (New York, 1963), pp. 32-33.

  2. Turkus and Feder, p. 134.

  3. Gosch, Hammer, p. 186.

  4. Sann, p. 257.

  5. Turkus and Feder, p. 139.

  6. Sann, p. 254.

  7. This incident and the quotes are taken from Sann, pp. 21-32.

  8. Ibid., p. 35.

  9. Gosch, Hammer, pp. 183-184.

  10. Sann, p. 89.

  11. On the killing of Dropper, see the New York Times, 29, 30,31 August 1923; and Asbury, The Gangs of New York, pp. 369-372. Detective captain Cornelius Willemse, who was in charge of transporting Dropper to his arraignment, offers a different version of his killing and says the killer’s name was Louis Kintzler, or Louis Cohen. (Willemse, Behind the Green Lights, pp. 334-339.).

  12. Asbury, p. 373. For Orgen’s murder and funeral, see the New York Times, 16, 17, 18 October 1927.

  13. Sifakis, Encyclopedia of American Crime, p. 169.

  14. Charles Jacobs, interview with author, Boston, Mass., 20 August 1992.

  15. Gosch, Hammer, pp. 87, 139.

  16. On Harry Strauss, see the New York Times, 21, 23 March, 12 June, 2 August, 5 September, 27 September 1940; 25 April, 13 June 1941; and Turkus and Feder.

  17. Turkus and Feder, pp. 307-312.

  18. Ibid., pp. 217-218.

  19. Ibid., pp. 206-215, 329.

  20. On Reles, see Turkus and Feder; and the New York Times, 26, 29, 30 October 1935; 26 August 1937, 31 August 1940; 13, 14 November 1941; 5 March, 5 June 1942.

  21. Turkus and Feder, p. 59.

  22. Ibid., p. 65.

  23. Goldstein, interview.

  24. Gosch, Hammer, p. 248.

  25. Ibid., p.253.

  26. Lacey, p. 407.

  27. Fay Newman Rubinstein [Ben Newman’s daughter], letter to author, 29 November 1998.

  28. Goldstein, interview.

  29. Ed Reid, Ovid Demaris, p. 19.

  30. Quoted in, Sidney Zion, Loyalty and Betrayal: The Story of the American Mob (San Francisco, 1994), p. 46.

  31. Lacey, p. 152.

  32. FBI File 62-8158, Memo to Director, 31 January 1947.

  33. FBI File 62-8158-433; Dean Jennings, We Only Kill Each Other: The Life and Bad Times of Bugsy Siegel (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968), pp. 317-318.

  34. Los Angeles Times, 21, 22, 23 June 1947; Los Angeles Examiner, 21,22, 23 June 1947; New York Times, 22 June 1947; FBI File 62-81518. 34

  35. Jennings, p. 205.

  36. Lacey, p. 158; Eisenberg et al., p. 241.

  37. Jennings, pp. 15-18.

  38. SAC, Newark to Director, FBI, 30 March 1956, FBI File 62-36805-34.

  39. Stuart, p. 216.

  40. SAC Newark, to Director FBI, 22 January 1959, FBI File 58-4441-4.

  41. Stuart, p. 217.

  42. Ibid., p.224.

  43. Goldstein, interview.

  44. Gosch, Hammer, p. 405.

  45. Eisenberg et al., p. 247.

  46. New York Times, 28 February 1959.

  47. Stuart, p. 231.

  48. New York Times, 25, 29 October 1974; 30 July 1976.

  49. Ibid., 30 July 1976.

  50. FBI File 62-89947-22.

  51. Memo, Mr. Rosen to Mr. Ladd, 20 July 1949, FBI File 62-89947-16; Los Angeles Mirror, 20 July 1949.

  52. Cohen, p. 78.

  53. Ibid., p. 135.

  54. IOC, Part 10, Testimony of Michael (Mickey) Cohen, p. 261.

  55. New York Times, 30 July 1976.

  56. Hearing in the Case of Jack Guzik, 12 December 1933, Records of Bureau of Prisons, Notorious Offenders File.

  57. Goldstein, interview.

  58. FBI File 29-HQ-5892.

  59. IOC, Part 10, Testimony of Moe Sedway, pp. 87-88.

  Chapter Seven: The Family Came First

  1. Cohen, pp. 182-183.

  2. The biographical material on Berman is from Susan Berman, Easy Street (New York, 1981), and FBI File 29-5892.

  3. Berman, p. 127.

  4. Ibid., p. 130.

  5. New York Times, 24 November 1927.

  6. FBI File 29-5892.

  7. Berman, p. 47.

  8. Ibid, p. 211.

  9. Francis A.J. Ianni, “The Mafia and the Web of Kinship/’ in Francis A.J. Ianni and Elizabeth Reuss-Ianni, The Crime Society: Organized Crime and Corruption in America (New York, 1976), pp. 42-59.

  10. See, James M. O’Kane, The Crooked Ladder: Gangsters, Ethnicity, and the American Dream (New Brunswick, N.J., 1992), for a discussion of the one-generational aspect of Jews in organized crime.

  11. Goldstein, interview.

  12. Stuart, p. 122.

  13. New York Times, 1 December 1933.

  14. Sann, p. 251-252.

  15. Ibid., p. 253.

  16. Ibid., pp. 253-254.

  17. Turkus and Feder, pp. 153-154.

  18. Sann, p. 293.

  19. Ibid., p.
303.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Ibid., p. 304.

  22. Ibid., p. 311.

  23. Eisenberg et al., p.229.

  24. During my conversation with Meyer Lansky in 1980, he spoke with pride of his son Paul’s attending and graduating from West Point (telephone interview with Meyer Lansky, 27 August 1980).

  25. Eisenberg et al., pp. 230-231.

  26. Lacey, p. 434.

  27. On Annenberg, see Messick, The Silent Syndicate, pp. 153-166.

  28. Ibid., p. 152.

  29. Moses L. Annenberg, Bureau of Prisons, Notorious Offenders File.

  30. Fox, p. 105.

  31. Ibid., p. 107.

  32. Washington Star, 4 June 1942.

  33. Fox, p. 173.

  34. Louis Buchalter, Probation Department Investigation Report, 18 December 1939, Bureau of Prisons, Notorious Offenders File.

  35. Turkus and Feder, p. 348.

  36. Zena Smith Blau, “In Defense of the Jewish Mother,” in Peter I. Rose, ed. The Ghetto and Beyond (New York, 1969), pp. 57-68.

  37. Mark Slobin, Tenement Songs (Chicago, 1982), p. 204.

  38. Fox, pp. 78-82.

  39. Eisenberg et al., p. 34.

  40. Lacey, pp. 75-76.

  41. Stuart, p. 117.

  42. Max Hassel, interview by author, Detroit, Mich., 23 July 1986.

  43. “Mervin,” interview by author, Newark, N.J., 19 April 1990. Mervin prefers to remain anonymous.

  44. Ibid.

  45. The correspondence between Guzik and the members of his family repose in the Guzik file, Records of the Bureau of Prisons, Notorious Offenders File, HM FY91 Box 42.

  46. Grandpop [Jack Guzik] to Billy Jack, 22 November 1935, Notorious Offenders.

  47. Joe and Lila to Jack, 28 September 1935, Ibid.

  48. Guzik family to Jack, 28 September 1935, Ibid.

  49. Jack Guzik to Jeanette, 3 September 1935, Ibid.

  50. Jeanette to Jack, 14 February 1935, Ibid.

  51. Jack to Jeanette, 15 January 1935, Ibid.

  52. Charles and Mom to Jack Guzik, undated, Ibid.

  53. Jack Guzik to wife, 4 December 1934, Ibid.

  54. Stuart, pp. 122, 228.

  55. The name of the family has been changed at their request.

  56. The source of this story, a relative of the former mobster, prefers to remain anonymous.

  57. Jewish Daily Forward (Yiddish), 23 March 1940.

  58. Dorrie Shapiro Grizzard, quoted in Zion, p. 48.

  59. Dena Rubens, letter to author, 22 April 1990.

  60. Eisenberg et al., pp. 323-324.

  Chapter Eight: Defenders of Their People

  1. Kenneth Allsop, The Bootleggers: The Story of Chicago’s Prohibition Era (London, 1961), p. 250; Walter Roth, “The Story of Samuel ‘Nails’ Morton: A Twentieth Century Golem?” Chicago Jewish History 13 (October 1989), pp. 1, 6-9; Chicago Daily News, 19 November 1925.

  2. John Landesco, Organized Crime in Chicago (Chicago, 1968 [1929]), pp. 196-198.

  3. Bill Reilly, “‘Nails Morton: The White Knight Gangster,” Inside Chicago (MarchApril 1990), pp. 30-31.

  4. Landesco, pp. 196-198.

  5. Ibid., p. 197.

  6. Lori Levinski, interview by author, Tel-Aviv, Israel, 5 April 1990.

  7. Landesco, p. 214.

  8. Joel Slonim, “The Jewish Gangster,” The Reflex 3 (July 1928), p. 38.

  9. Abe Shoenfeld, Story 14, File 1780, Magnes Archives, Jerusalem. Subsequent quotes by Shoenfeld about Zelig are taken from this source and will not be cited.

  10. Arthur A. Goren, “Saints and Sinners: The Underside of American Jewish History,” p. 18.

  11. Stuart, pp. 20-21.

  12. Myron Sugerman, interview by author, Tel-Aviv, Israel, 19 April 1991.

  13. Kugel, interview.

  14. Howard Simons, Jewish Times: Voices of the American Jewish Experience (Boston, 1988), 133-134. The attitude displayed by the Jewish community toward the Jewish gangsters was not very different from that of the general community. Despite a certain fear and abhorrence for the gangster, Americans have viewed him as something of a folk hero. For a discussion of American attitudes toward the gangster, see David E. Ruth, Inventing the Public Enemy: The Gangster in American Culture, 1918-1934 (Chicago, 1996); and Robert War show, “The Gangster as Tragic Hero,” The Immediate Experience, ed. Robert Warshow (New York, 1962), pp. 127-133.

  15. Murray, p. 54.

  16. Mark Haller, “Organizing Crime in Urban Society: Chicago in the Twentieth Century“Journal of Social History 5 (1971-1972), p. 227.

  17. Lacey, p. 113.

  18. Lansky, telephone interview; Eisenberg et al., pp. 184-186.

  19. Eisenberg et al., p. 184.

  20. Ibid., p. 185.

  21. Judd L. Teller, Strangers and Natives:The Evolution of the American Jew from 1921 to the Present (New York, 1968), pp. 183-184.

  22. Eisenberg et al., p. 185.

  23. Teller, pp. 184-185; Ronald H. Bayor, Neighbors in Conflict: The Irish, Germans, Jews and Italians of New York City, 1929-1941 (Baltimore, 1978), p. 136.

  24. Lansky, telephone interview.

  25. Hinkes, interview.

  26. Ibid.

  27. Heshey Weiner, interview by author, Newark, N.J., 15 August 1990.

  28. Invitation, ‘A Tribute to Max Tuddy’ Hinkes,” in possession of author.

  29. Brin, interview.

  30. Ibid.

  31. David H. Bennett, The Party of Fear: From Nativist Movements to the New Right in American History (Chapel Hill, 1988), p. 245.

  32. John Higham, “Social Discrimination Against Jews, 1830-1930,” in Send These to Me: Jews and Other Immigrants in Urban America, ed. John Higham (New York, 1975), p. 163.

  33. Berman, pp. 144-145.

  34. Ibid.

  35. Cohen, pp. 67-68.

  36. Ibid., p. 68.

  37. Jennings, pp. 76-77; Lacey, p. 112.

  38. The following material is from FBI File 65-53615.

  39. David Stern to German Ambassador, 23 March 1933, FBI File 65-53615-X.

  40. FBI File 65-53615-X.

  41. Ibid.

  42. R.G. Harvey, SAC, to Director, 3 May 1933, FBI File 65-53615-X4.

  43. SAC, Memo, 21 August 1933, FBI File 65-53615-X13.

  44. J.M. Keith to Director, 19 August 1933, FBI File 65-5365-X13.

  45. Dwight Brantley to Director, 2 September 1933, FBI File 65-53615-X 14.

  46. “Dutch,” interview by author, Herzlia, Israel, 15 August 1988. This source prefers to remain anonymous.

  47. Letter from Dr. S.S. Hollender, 9 June 1980.

  48. Lacey, pp. 7, 163-164, 261; A. Rubin, interview by author, Tel-Aviv, Israel, lOJune 1980.

  49. “Invitation” to the State of Israel Tribute Dinner for Moe Dalitz, 18 October 1970; New York Times, 1 September 1989.

  50. IOC, Part 10, p. 91.

  51. Ira Berkow, Maxwell Street (New York, 1977), p. 139.

  52. Stuart, p. 107.

  53. Ibid., p. 109.

  54. Ibid.

  55. Ibid., pp. 210-211.

  56. Jeremiah Unterman, interview by author, Boston, Mass., 16 December 1986.

  57. Donald R. Cressey, Theft of a Nation: The Structure and Operations of Organized Crime in America (New York, 1969), pp. 274-275; Joseph Bonanno, A Man of Honor (New York, 1983), p. 319.

  58. M.S. (this source prefers to remain anonymous), interview by author, Newark, N.J. 16 April 1990.

  59. The story of gunrunning on behalf of Israel is told in Leonard Slater, The Pledge (New York, 1970).

  60. Ibid., p. 133.

  61. Lacey, p. 163; Eisenberg et al., p. 296.

  62. Daniel Avivi, interview by author, Herzlia, Israel, 26 June 1991.

  63. Reuven Dafni, interview by author, Jerusalem, Israel, 7 June 1989.

  73. Lacey, p. 338.

  74. Dafni, interview.

  75. Cohen, pp. 90, 234. The information about Cohen was provided by a Los Angeles Jewish busin
essman who was threatened and extorted by Cohen. This source prefers to remain anonymous.

  76. Cleveland Plain Dealer, 8 April 1953.

  77. Ibid., 19 December 1951.

  Bibliography

  Government and Archival Sources

  Department of Justice. Bureau of Prisons. Notorious Offenders File. National Archives, Washington, D.C.

  Files of Moses L. Annenberg, Louis <
  Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Washington, D.C. Files on:

  Isadore Blumenfeld, Files 62-69850, 92-2720

  Lepke Buchalter, Files 60-1501, 62-99379

  Mickey Cohen, File 62-89947

  Arthur Flegenheimer, File 23-2130

  Louis Fleisher, Files 7-142, 62-29632, 15-1089, 62-1383

  Max Hoff, Files 62-22444-1-86, 62-31642, 62-91933

  Meyer Lansky, File 92-2831

  Purple Gang, Files 60-1501, 62-29632, 62-25345, 62-81093, 62-26664

  Arnold Rothstein, Files 62-57444, 62-32855

  Moe Sidwertz [Sedway], File 29-HQ-5892

  Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, Files 62-81518, 62-2837

  Mert Wertheimer, Files 62-44462, 62-34294

  Abner Zwillman, File 62-36085

  Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce. Hearings Before the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce. 81st Congress, 2nd Session, and 82nd Congress, 1st Session. Interim Reports, Final Report, Hearings in twelve parts and index. Washington, United States Government Printing Office, 1950-1951.

  Magnes Papers, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem. Abe Shoenfeld’s reports on Jewish Criminality on the Lower East Side of New York, and on Jack Zelig.

  Committee of Seventy Collection, Urban Archives Center, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia grand jury report (1928), on Max Hoff’s syndicate.

  Newspapers Boston Globe, 1933-1934

  Boston Evening Transcript, 24 January-26 May 1933.

  Chicago Daily Courier (Yiddish), 1924.

  Chicago Daily News, 1925.

  Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1951, 1953.

  Daily Variety, 8 January 1960.

  Detroit News, 1920-1945, 1965.

  Detroit Free Press, 1927, 1945, 1964.

  Detroit Times, 1933-1937.

  Forbes, 13 September 1982.

  Hollywood Reporter, 8 January 1960.

  Jewish Daily Forward (Yiddish), 1944.

  Jewish Week Examiner, 1981.

  Los Angeles Examiner, 1947.

  Los Angeles Times, 1947.

  New York Daily News, 1944.

  New York Mirror, 1939, 1947.