Jewish Mob
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The Jewish Mob (also known by other names such as the Israeli Mafia, Israeli Mob, Hebrew Mob, or Kosher Nostra) is a type of organized crime syndicate, primarily consisting of Americans of Jewish descent, mostly Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. They have often worked closely with the American Mafia and sometimes even the Russian Mafia. Famous Jewish mobsters include Mickey Cohen, Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky (of Ashkenazi bloodlines), and Frank Rosenthal (also of Ashkenazi bloodlines).
History edit
In the late 19th century in New York City, Monk Eastman (who himself was most likely not Jewish) operated a powerful Jewish 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 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." Rothstein was allegedly responsible for fixing the 1919 World Series.
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 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 and gained significant influence within the Italian-American Mafia, eventually forming a loosely organized, mostly Jewish and Italian criminal syndicate known in the press as the "National Crime Syndicate."
Jewish and Italian crime groups became increasingly interconnected in the 1920s and 1930s, as they 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 Cohen crime family of Los Angeles and Las Vegas was notably part of both the Jewish Mafia and Italian-American Mafia, and lines between the two ethnic 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.
In more recent years, Jewish-American organized crime has reappeared in the form of Orthodox Jewish, Israeli and Jewish-Russian Mafia criminal groups. Many of the Russian mobsters active in New York, especially Brighton Beach, are actually Soviet Jews, including Marat Balagula, Boris Nayfeld, and Evsei Agron.
From the 1990s until 2013, members of the New York divorce coercion gang kidnapped and tortured 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.