Jewish-American organized crime

"Jewish mafia" redirects here. For Jewish organized crime groups in Israel and organized crime groups consisting of mostly Jewish Israelis, see Israeli mafia.
"Kosher Nostra" redirects here. For the M.O.T. song, see Kosher Nostra (song).

Jewish-American mafia
Kosher Mafia
Some Kosher Mafia members numbered in police reports
FoundedLate 19th century
Founded byArnold Rothstein
Founding locationNew York City, East Coast of the United States
Years active19th century–present
TerritoryNew York City and its metropolitan area, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New Jersey, Orlando, Washington D.C., Montreal
EthnicityAshkenazi Jewish
Criminal activities
Allies

Jewish-American organized crime initially emerged within the American Jewish community during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In media and popular culture, it has variously been referred to as the Jewish Mob, the Jewish Mafia, the Kosher Mob, the Kosher Mafia, the Yiddish Connection,[1] and Kosher Nostra[2][3] or Undzer Shtik (Yiddish: אונדזער שטיק).[a][3] The last two of these terms are direct references to the Italian Cosa Nostra; the former is a play on the word for kosher, referring to Jewish dietary laws, while the latter is a calque of the Italian phrase 'cosa nostra' (Italian for "our thing") into Yiddish, which was at the time the predominant language of the Jewish diaspora in the United States.

In the late 19th century and early 20th century in New York City, Monk Eastman (who himself was most likely not Jewish) operated a powerful Jewish gang known as the Eastman Gang that competed with Italian and Irish gangs, notably Paul Kelly's Five Points Gang, for control of New York City's underworld. Another notorious gang, known as the Lenox Avenue Gang, led by Harry "Gyp the Blood" Horowitz, consisted of mostly Jewish members and some Italian members (such as Francesco Cirofisi). It was one of the most violent gangs of the early 20th century and became famous for the murder of gambler and gangster Herman Rosenthal.

In the early 1920s, stimulated by the economic opportunities of the Roaring Twenties, and later stimulated by Prohibition, Jewish organized crime figures such as Arnold Rothstein were controlling a wide range of criminal enterprises, including bootlegging, loansharking, gambling, and bookmaking. According to crime writer Leo Katcher, Rothstein "transformed organized crime from a thuggish activity by hoodlums into a big business, run like a corporation, with himself at the top."[4][page needed] Rothstein was allegedly responsible for fixing the 1919 World Series.[5][page needed] At the same time, the Jewish bootlegging mob known as The Purple Gang dominated the Detroit underworld during Prohibition, while the 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.

The largely Jewish-American and Italian-American gang which was known as Murder, Inc. and Jewish mobsters such as Meyer Lansky, Mickey Cohen, Harold "Hooky" Rothman, Dutch Schultz, and Bugsy Siegel developed close ties with the Italian-American Mafia and gained a significant amount of influence within it; eventually, they formed a loosely organized, mostly Jewish and Italian criminal syndicate which the press named the "National Crime Syndicate." Jewish and Italian crime groups increasingly became interconnected in the 1920s and 1930s, and their connections continued into the 1960s and beyond, partially because both groups often occupied the same neighborhoods and social statuses of the time. The two ethnic crime groups became especially close in New York City following the establishment of the close relationship between partners Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and their subsequent elimination of many of the so-called "Mustache Pete" types ⁠— Sicilian-born gangsters who often refused to work with non-Italians and even non-Sicilians. The lines between Jewish and Italian criminal organizations often blurred throughout the 20th century. For decades after, Jewish-American mobsters would continue to work closely and at times compete with Italian-American organized crime.[6]

  1. ^ Cohen, Rich (2002). Yiddish Connection (1st ed.). Gallimard. ISBN 2-07-042225-9.
  2. ^ "Forgetting sixth commandment: Jewish gangsters were once known in organized crime circles as the 'Kosher Nostra'" Archived June 10, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, The Jewish Independent, September 19, 2008
  3. ^ a b Tyler, Gus (June 22, 1970). "Book of the Week: The Kosher Nostra". New York. Vol. 3, no. 25. p. 50. Archived from the original on April 5, 2016. Retrieved February 27, 2015.
  4. ^ Katcher, Leo (1959/1994). The Big Bankroll. The Life and Times of Arnold Rothstein, New York: Da Capo Press
  5. ^ Pietrusza, David (2003). Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 0-7867-1250-3
  6. ^ Sifakis, The Mafia Encyclopedia, pp. 319–321


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