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

by Robert Rockaway

  My thanks also to Danna Har-Gil whose, editing skills proved most helpful in my revisions of the text. Lastly, I want to acknowledge, with thanks, Ilan, Dror and Murray Greenfield of Gefen Publishing House for their continuing interest and encouragement.

  — Robert A. Rockaway Arsuf, Israel

  Source Notes

  Chapter One: Crime Barons of the East

  1. According to the FBI, Meyer Lansky made this comment to his wife in a wiretapped conversation; however, no written record of this comment survives. What does exist is the FBI agent’s paraphrase of what Lansky supposedly said. Once this papraphrase became public it turned into a direct quotation. Lansky always denied having said it. Robert Lacey, Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life (Boston, 1991), pp. 284-285, offers a plausible analysis of how this phrase came to be attributed to Lansky.

  2. Andrew Sinclair, Era of Excess: A Social History of the Prohibition Movement (New York, 1962), pp.166-170. At the time of repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the Roosevelt administration issued a report declaring that the total cost of Prohibition to the United States, in terms of lost revenue and enforcement, amounted to over 26 billion dollars, 10 billion dollars more than the cost of America’s participation in the First World War (Ibid., pp. 396-399; William Helmer with Rick Mattix, Public Enemies: America’s Criminal Past [New York, 1998], p. 65).

  3. Larry Engelmann, Intemperance: The Lost War Against Liquor (New York, 1979), p. x.

  4. Gangs and crime syndicates did not begin with Prohibition. They rose to power through the saloons, gambling houses and brothels of the nineteenth century, and through the murderous wars of labor and capital in the days of the robber barons. The simultaneous advent of automobiles, Thompson submachine guns and telephones allowed successful local gangsters to extend their control over entire cities and states (Sinclair, p. 221).

  5. Sinclair, pp. 230-231.

  6. Ibid., pp. 198; 438, note 62.

  7. Robert Schoenberg, Mr. Capone (New York, 1992), p. 176; Laurence Bergreen, Capone: The Man and the Era (New York, 1994), pp. 356-357.

  8. Hershel Kessler, interview by author, Los Angeles, Calif., 14 September 1989.

  9. Mark Haller, “Bootleggers and American Gambling, 1920-1950/’ in Commission on the Review of National Policy Toward Gambling, Gambling in America, Appendix I (Washington, D.C., 1976); Stephen Fox, Blood and Power: Organized Crime in Twentieth Century America (New York, 1989), pp. 24-35; Albert Fried, The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America (New York, 1980).

  10. Leo Katcher, The Big Bankroll: The Life and Times of Arnold Rothstein (New York, 1959), p. 8.

  11. Dennis Eisenberg, Uri Dan, Eli Landau, Meyer Lansky: Mogul of the Mob (New York, 1979), p. 108.

  12. Katcher, p. 12.

  13. Donald Henderson Clarke, In the Reign of Rothstein (New York, 1929), p. 13.

  14. Jill Jonnes, “Founding Father: One Man Invented the Modern Narcotics Industry/’ American Heritage, February/March 1993, pp. 48-49; Katcher, pp. 287-299; David Courtwright, Herman Joseph, and Don Des Jarlais, Addicts Who Survived: An Oral History of Narcotic Use in America, 19231965 (Knoxville, 1989), pp. 110-111, note 2; 199-200.

  15. Alan Block, book review of Addicts Who Survived, in the Journal of Social History 24 (Winter 1990), pp. 396-399.

  16. Courtwright et al., pp. 187, 193.

  17. Ibid., p. 188.

  18. Martin A. Gosch, Richard Hammer, The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano (Boston, 1974), p. 57.

  19. Ibid., p. 41.

  20. Katcher, pp. 138, 300.

  21. New York Times, 5 November 1928; Katcher, p. 6.

  22. New York Times, 8 November 1928; Arthur Goren, “Saints and Sinners: The Underside of American Jewish History/’ Brochure Series of the American Jewish Archives, Number VII, 1988, pp. 8-9.

  23. New York Times, 2 December 1933.

  24. Alan Block, East Side-West Side: Organizing Crime in New York, 1930-1950 (New Brunswick, 1985), pp.133-134.

  25. Jenna Weissman Joselit, Our Gang: Jewish Crime and the New York Jewish Community, 1900-1940 (Bloomington, 1983), pp. 95-97.

  26. Paul Sann, Kill the Dutchman! The Story of Dutch Schultz (New York, 1971), pp. 99-100.

  27. New York Times, 25 October 1935.

  28. Carl Sifakis, The Encyclopedia of American Crime (New York, 1982), p. 642.

  29. Fox, p. 29.

  30. Sann, p. 218.

  31. Gosch, Hammer, p. 176.

  32. Sifakis, p. 642.

  33. Sann, p.106.

  34. Sann, pp. 154, 166-167.

  35. Sifakis, p. 642.

  36. Max “Puddy” Hinkes, interview by author, Newark, N.J., 19 August 1990; Myron Sugerman, interview by author, Tel-Aviv, Israel, 19 April 1991.

  37. Sifakis, p. 642.

  38. New York Times, 22 June 1947; Lacey, p. 35. Eisenberg et al., p. 56.

  39. Eisenberg et al., p. 56.

  40. Ibid., p. 57.

  41. Ibid., p.57.

  42. Ibid., p. 122.

  43. Stanley Feldstein, The Land That I Show You: Three Centuries of Jewish Life in America (New York, 1978), p. 323.

  44. Eisenberg et al., p. 143.

  45. In describing this incident, Peter Maas, The Valachi Papers (New York, 1968), p. 103, cites Case No. 133 of the 60th squad, New York Police Department.

  46. New York Sun, 11 September 1931; Maas, Valachi Papers, pp. 112-116; Humbert Nelli, The Business of Crime (Lexington, 1976), p. 206.

  47. Bureau of Prisons, Notorious Offenders File, “Louis ‘Lepke’ Buchalter,” National Archives, Washington, D.C. (henceforth, Notorious Offenders File).

  48. Ibid.

  49. Gosch, Hammer, pp. 38-39.

  50. Louis Buchalter, Admission Summary, 8 May 1940, Bureau of Prisons, Notorious Offenders File.

  51. New York Times, lOJune 1947. FBI File 60-1501, “The Furdress Case,” pp. 26-36. The FBI Files cited are located at the Federal Bureau of Investigation Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

  52. FBI File 60-1501; Burton B. Turkus and Sid Feder, Murder, Inc. (New York, 1992 [1951]), p. 332.

  53. New York Times, 5 March 1944.

  54. Turkus and Feder, p. 337.

  55. FBI File 60-1501.

  56. Ibid.

  57. On Lepke’s involvement in the narcotics traffic see, “Report on Convicted Prisoner by United States Attorney,” U.S. Penitentiary Leavenworth, Kansas, 24 May 1940, in National Archives, Washington, D.C.; New York Evening Journal-American, 8 August 1939; New York Times, 6 April 1940; Turkus and Feder, p. 347.

  58. U.S. Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce (henceforth, IOC), 1951, Part 2, “Testimony of Harry J. Anslinger, Commissioner of Narcotics/’ pp. 89-91; see also Turkus and Feder, p. 348.

  59. Turkus and Feder, pp. 332-333.

  60. New York Times, 26 October 1935, 10 November 1935.

  61. Nelli, pp. 211-218, maintains that no national crime organization was ever created, but various local syndicate leaders did meet periodically. On the other hand, Hank Messick, Lansky, pp. 72-79, maintains that a national syndicate was created.

  62. Turkus and Feder, pp. 3-22; 350.

  63. The information on Louis Amberg comes from the New York Times, 30 October 1932, 3 November 1932, 12 November 1932, 6 May 1934, 23 October 1935, 24 October 1935, 25 October 1935, 26 October 1935, 27 October 1935.

  64. Carl Sifakis, The Mafia Encyclopedia (New York, 1987), p. 10.

  65. Ibid.

  66. IOC, Part 12, “Testimony of Abner Zwillman,” p. 617. See FBI File 6236085 for information about Zwillman’s criminal activities.

  67. Mark Stuart, Gangster #2: Longy Zwillman, the Man Who Invented Organized Crime (Secaucus, N.J, 1985), p. 22.

  68. IOC, Report 725 (31 August 1951), pp. 65-66.

  69. Ibid., pp. 66-67; Stuart, p. 32.

  70. Hank Messick, Secret File (New York, 1969), p.278.

  71. Ibid.

  72. Fox, p. 31.

  73. FBI File 62-3608.

&
nbsp; 74. FBI File 62-36085-10.

  75. Ibid.

  76. Irving “Itzik’ Goldstein, interview by author, Newark, N.J.,16 August 1990.

  77. Stuart, pp. 54-55.

  78. Goldstein, interview.

  79. Jerry Kugel, interview by author, Newark, N.J., 15 August 1990.

  80. Stuart, pp. 80-89.

  81. New York Times, 28 April 1941.

  82. Philadelphia Grand Jury Report, 1928, Committee of Seventy Collection, Urban Archives Center, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; New York Times, 1 September 1928, 8 September 1928, 30 December 1928; New Outlook, November 1933, pp. 27-28.

  83. Philadelphia Grand Jury Report, Ibid.

  84. Ibid.

  85. New York Times, 28 April 1941.

  86. IOC, Part 11, pp. 72-98.

  87. Fox, p. 72.

  88. New York Times, 5 September 1957, 6 September 1957, 28 October 1957, 29 October 1957, 5 February 1958, 18 February 1958, 26 March 1958, 24 April 1958, 2 April 1958, 11 April 1958.

  89. Lester Schaffer, interview by author, Philadelphia, Penn., 14 August 1991.

  90. Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, 5 January 1979.

  91. Information about Solomon is from the New York Times, 25 January 1933, 22 August 1933; National Archives, Record Group 60, File 12-1751; Boston Globe, 11 April 1933, 12 April 1933, 9 May 1933, 13 December 1933, 18 May 1934; and Boston Evening Transcript, 24 January-26 May, 1933.

  92. The description of the murder is taken from the Boston Globe, 14 June 1933.

  Chapter Two: Rogues of the Midwest

  1. On Dalitz and the Cleveland Four, see Hank Messick, The Silent Syndicate (New York, 1967). On the gang during Prohibition, see the eleven part series of articles in the Cleveland Plain Dealer from 23 December 1933 to 5 January 1934.

  2. IOC, Part 2, pp. 174-177 (testimony of Virgil Peterson).

  3. Ibid.

  4. New York Times, 10 September 1973; Ibid.

  5. Ibid., 10 November, 1975, 22 November 1975.

  6. IOC, Part 10, p. 923.

  7. Sifakis, Mafia Encyclopedia, p. 96.

  8. Forbes, 13 September 1982, p. 146.

  9. FBI File 62-23190-178.

  10. FBI File 32-15941.

  11. Schoenberg, p. 102.

  12. Ibid., pp. 102-103; George Murray, The Legacy of Al Capone (New York, 1975), pp. 120-122.

  13. Murray, p. 341.

  14. Bergreen, p.92.

  15. Records of the Bureau of Prisons, National Archives, Notorious Offenders Files, FIM FY91, Box 42.

  16. Murray, p. 339.

  17. Ibid., p. 337.

  18. Ibid., p. 336.

  19. FBI File 62-69850-1, 62-69850, 92-2720; Paul Maccabee, John Dillinger Slept Here: The Crooks’ Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul, 1920-1936, (St. Paul, 1995), p. xiii.

  20. New York Times, 11 December 1935.

  21. IOC, Part 2, pp. 170-171, testimony of Virgil Peterson.

  22. Maccabee, p. 29.

  23. Ibid., p. 35.

  24. Ibid., pp. 39-41.

  25. Chicago Daily Jewish Courier (Yiddish), 18 March 1924.

  26. Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, 21 September 1928, p. 16.

  27. Fried, pp. 112-113.

  28. Leonard Simons, interview by author, Detroit, Mich., 20 August 1985.

  29. Philip Slomovitz, interview by author, Detroit, Mich., 10 September 1989. While the Jewish English-language press printed almost nothing about Jewish crime, the New York Yiddish dailies, like the general press, were filled with stories about Jewish gangsters.

  30. Leonard Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America (New York, 1994), pp. 78127.

  31. Harry Fleisch, interview by author, Detroit, Mich., 20 July 1985.

  32. Eisenberg et al., p. 34.

  33. Schaffer, interview.

  34. Herb Brin, interview by author, Los Angeles, Calif., 27 August 1991.

  35. Mickey Cohen, In My Own Words: The Underworld Autobiography of Michael Mickey Cohen (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1975), p. 257.

  Chapter Three: The Purple Gang

  1. The following account of the “Collingwood Massacre” and its aftermath is based on C. H. Gervais, The Rumrunners: A Prohibition Scrapbook (Ontario, 1980), pp. 133-142; and the Detroit News, 11 November 1931, 12 December 1931, 28 November 1937.

  2. Gervais, p. 133; Detroit News, 11 November 1931.

  3. Detroit News, 22 August 1965; Detroit Free Press, 19 September 1965.

  4. Gervais, p. 138.

  5. Detroit News, 22 August 1965.

  6. Robert A. Rockaway, The Jews of Detroit: From the Beginning, 1762-1914 (Detroit, 1986), p. 59; Sidney Bolkosky, Harmony and Dissonance: Voices of Jewish Identity in Detroit, 1914-1967 (Detroit, 1991), pp. 59-60.

  7. Bolkosky, p. 59.

  8. Rockaway, p.63.

  9. Ibid., pp. 59, 61; Bolkosky, p. 59.

  10. Rockaway, pp. 62-63.

  11. Ibid., p.63.

  12. FBI File 62-26664. This profile is based on interviews with family members and former neighbors of the Purple gangsters. These sources wish to remain anonymous.

  13. Haskel Adler, interview by author, Detroit, Mich.,3 July 1985.

  14. Detroit News, 14 January 1945.

  15. Engelmann, p. 125.

  16. Ibid., p. 126.

  17. Ibid.

  18. Ibid., p. 127

  19. The stories about Izzy and Moe are taken from Sifakis, Encyclopedia of American Crime, pp. 364-365; and Izzy Einstein, Prohibition Agent No. 1 (New York, 1932).

  20. Engelmann, p. 127.

  21. Ibid., p. 139.

  22. Ibid., p. 143.

  23. Ibid.; FBI File 62-2664-1320, memo, SAC (Special Agent in Charge), New York, to Director, FBI, 1 June 1932.

  24. FBI File 62-26664-13200.

  25. Gervais, p. 133; Engelmann, p. 144.

  26. Gervais, p. 131.

  27. Detroit News, 28 November 1937, 13 March 1939, 14 March 1939.

  28. Ibid.

  29. David Levitt, letter to author, 20 July 1990.

  30. Detroit Times, 27 November 1933; Detroit News, 14 January 1945.

  31. Sifakis, Mafia Encyclopedia, p. 117.

  32. Detroit Times, 27 November 1933; Detroit News, 14 January 1945.

  33. Detroit Times, 27 November 1937.

  38. Fox, p. 81.

  39. Detroit Free Press, 20 August 1927.

  40. Engelmann, p. 144.

  41. Schoenberg, pp. 207-229.

  42. Sifakis, Mafia Encyclopedia, p. 222.

  43. Schoenberg, p. 209.

  44. Ibid., pp. 207-229.

  45. Ibid., pp. 228-229; FBI File 62-39128, serials 137-207, section 4; Detroit News, 16 February 1929, 18 February 1929.

  46. FBI File 62-296321-11, Letter to J. Edgar Hoover, 25 June 1936.

  47. Engelmann, p. 143.

  48. Detroit Free Press, 25 June 1927.

  49. Red Rudensky, The Gonif (Minnesota, 1970), p. 115.

  50. Detroit Times, 27 November 1933.

  51. Bolkosky, p. 143.

  52. Ibid.

  53. Detroit News, 14 January 1945.

  54. Ibid.; Detroit News, 13 September 1928.

  55. FBI File 62-29632-3, Letter to Mr. Hoover, 4 August 1934.

  56. Engelmann, pp. 144-145.

  57. Detroit News, 25 July 1929.

  58. Levitt, letter to author.

  59. Detroit News, 20 September 1930, 28 November 1937,22 October 1965.

  60. Detroit News, 14 January 1945.

  61. Detroit News, 22 October 1965.

  62. Detroit Free Press, 3 April 1964.

  63. Ibid.

  64. Ibid.

  65. Richard Bak, “Dusting Off the Purple Gang,” Detroit Monthly, December 1992, p. 68.

  66. Ibid.; Detroit News, 28 November 1937.

  67. Detroit Times, 27 November 1933.

  68. Detroit News, 14 January 1945.

  69. Detroit News, 25 November 1937, 28 November 1937.

  70. Detroit News, 25 November 1937.

  7
1. Ibid.

  72. Ibid.; Turkus and Feder, p. 9.

  73. Engelmann, pp. 145-147; Nelli, p. 170.

  74. Engelmann, pp. 146-147.

  75. Sifakis, Mafia Encyclopedia, pp. 351-352.

  76. Gervais, pp. 143-144.

  77. Elsie Proskie, interview by author, Tel-Aviv, Israel, 1 January 1991.

  78. Melvin Holli, ed., Detroit (Detroit, 1976), p. 126; Bak, p. 109.

  79. Ibid.

  80. Ibid.; Robert Conot, American Odessey (New York, 1974), pp. 343-344.

  81. Nelli, p. 170.

  82. Meyer Lansky, telephone interview, 27 August 1980.

  83. Daily Variety (Hollywood), 8 January 1960; The Hollywood Reporter, 8 January 1960.

  Chapter Four; In the Beginning

  1. Joselit, p. 1.

  2. Thomas Byrnes, 1886 Professional Criminals of America (New York, 1969 [1886]), pp. 224-225.

  3. Ibid., pp. 261-262.

  4. Ibid, pp. 268-269.

  5. Ibid., pp. 152-154.

  6. Benjamin R Eldridge and William B. Watts, Our Rival, The Rascal (Boston, 1897), p. 88.

  7. Ibid., p. 328.

  8. For immigration statistics, see Simon Kuznets, “Immigration of Russian Jews to the United States: Background and Structure,” Perspectives in American History IX (1975), pp. 35-124; and Abraham Karp, Haven and Home: A History of the Jews in America (New York, 1985), pp. 374-378.

  9. See Arthur A. Goren, New York Jews and the Quest for Community: The Kehilla Experiment, 1908-1922 (New York, 1970); and Joselit, Our Gang for descriptions of East Side vice and crime.

  10. Herbert Ausbury, The Gangs of New York (New York, 1927), p. 359; Joselit, pp. 39-40.

  11. For Fein’s career, see Ausbury, pp. 362-368; andjoselit, pp. 107-112.

  12. Ausbury, p.274. For Eastman’s career, see Ausbury, pp. 273-287, 295298.

  13. Ibid., p.276.

  14. Ibid., p.298.

  15. Cornelius W. Willemse, Behind the Green Lights (Garden City, 1931), p. 288. See also Ausbury, pp. 287-290, 292-295.

  16. Ausbury, p. 295.

  17. Ibid., p.329.

  18. Sifakis, Encyclopedia of American Crime, p. 306.

  19. Ausbury, p. 343. For Zelig’s career, see Ausbury, pp. 331-336, 339-342.

  Chapter Five: The Perils and Pitfalls of the Gangster Life

  1. The story about Jake Skuratofsky was told to me by Myron Sugerman, Newark, N.J., 16 August 1990.