List Of Jewish American Mobsters ...
__NOTOC__ This is a list of Jewish-American mobsters and organized crime figures, ranging from the late 19th century to the present day. See also * List of mobsters by city References Further reading * Block, Alan A. ''Lepke, Kid Twist, and the Combination: Organized Crime in New York City, 1930–1944''. 1976. * Cohan, Hillary. ''Growing Up Jewish In The Mob''. 2013. * Sadowsky, Sandy. ''Wedded to Crime: My Life in the Jewish Mafia''. 1992. External links New Voices: Left Off the Ark—A Bestiary of Gangs {{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Jewish American Mobsters Mobsters Jewish American mobsters Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Organized Crime
Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a form of illegal business, some criminal organizations, such as terrorist groups, rebel forces, and separatists, are politically motivated. Many criminal organizations rely on fear or terror to achieve their goals or aims as well as to maintain control within the organization and may adopt tactics commonly used by authoritarian regimes to maintain power. Some forms of organized crime simply exist to cater towards demand of illegal goods in a state or to facilitate trade of goods and services that may have been banned by a state (such as illegal drugs or firearms). Sometimes, criminal organizations force people to do business with them, such as when a gang extorts money from shopkeepers for "protection". Street gangs may ofte ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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David Berman (mobster)
David Berman (1903 – June 16, 1957) was a Jewish-American organized crime figure active in Sioux City, Iowa, the Twin Cities, and the Las Vegas strip. He was a casino gambling pioneer in Las Vegas, where he was a partner with mobster Bugsy Siegel at the Flamingo Hotel. Berman died in 1957 during surgery. Early life Berman was born into a Jewish family in Odessa, Russian Empire. His father was a former rabbinical student who played the violin. When he was a young child, his father departed for America and settled in Ashley, North Dakota, on land provided by Baron Maurice de Hirsch's Jewish Colonization Association. Berman then sent for his wife and children. David's mother was reportedly horrified after getting off the train and realizing that they had exchanged the relative warmth of Odessa for the icy cold of the Great Plains. Gangster After failing on the land, the Bermans moved to Sioux City, Iowa, where David began his criminal career. At the age of 13, he ran a crew of t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Public Enemy No
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkeit'' or public sphere. The concept of a public has also been defined in political science, psychology, marketing, and advertising. In public relations and communication science, it is one of the more ambiguous concepts in the field. Although it has definitions in the theory of the field that have been formulated from the early 20th century onwards, and suffered more recent years from being blurred, as a result of conflation of the idea of a public with the notions of audience, market segment, community, constituency, and stakeholder. Etymology and definitions The name "public" originates with the Latin '' publicus'' (also '' poplicus''), from ''populus'', to the English word 'populace', and in general denotes some mass population ("the p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alex Birns
Alex Birns (February 21, 1907 – March 29, 1975), best known as Shondor Birns, was a notorious Jewish-American mob boss and racketeer from Cleveland, Ohio, who was once labeled as the city's "Public enemy No. 1" by the local newspapers. He was actively involved in a wide variety of racketeering and other organized crime related activities such as prostitution, theft, numbers, etc., from the days of Prohibition until his demise. Biography Early life Alex Birns was born Sándor Birnstein in 1907, in the town of Lemes, in a section of Austria-Hungary that went to Czechoslovakia under the Treaty of Trianon. His Hungarian Jewish parents were Herman and Illon Birnstein. The second youngest of four children, Sándor was brought through Ellis Island at the age of one month. From there, the family moved to Cleveland and settled in the lower Woodland Avenue district. Like many immigrant families, the Birnsteins Americanized their surname, in their case to Birns. Alexander's name was abb ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Shelton Brothers Gang
The Shelton Brothers Gang was an early Prohibition-era bootlegging gang based in southern Illinois. They were the main rivals of the famous bootlegger Charles Birger and his gang. In 1950, the '' Saturday Evening Post'' described the Sheltons as "America's Bloodiest Gang". Ancestors of the Shelton Brothers Gang trace their roots back to Ireland, under the surname "Hunter". There are still some descendants living in the St. Louis and Bloomington IL area today. History Formed by Carl (born 1888), Earl (born 1890), and Bernie "Red" Shelton (born 1898) of "Geff" Jeffersonville, Wayne County, Illinois shortly after Prohibition came into effect in 1920, the gang operated in Williamson County, Illinois, making moonshine and other illegal alcoholic beverages. They eventually dominated both gambling and liquor distribution in Little Egypt until 1926, when a former ally, gangster Charles Birger, attempted to take over the Sheltons' bootlegging operations. This began a violent gang war, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Charles Birger
Charles "Charlie" Birger (born Shachna Itzak Birger, February 5, 1881 – April 19, 1928) was an American bootlegger during the Prohibition period in southern Illinois. Early life Charles Birger was born to a Jewish family in the Russian Empire, and emigrated to the United States as a child with his parents. Birger and his family settled in St. Louis, where, aged eight, Charlie got a job as a news boy at the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' newspaper. Later, Birger moved to the O'Fallon, Missouri, area, where he started work in a pool room. On July 5, 1901, Birger enlisted in the United States Army and was assigned to Company G of the newly formed 13th Cavalry Regiment (United States), 13th Cavalry Regiment, then stationed in South Dakota. Birger was described as a good soldier and was honorably discharged on July 4, 1904, at Fort Meade (South Dakota), Fort Meade, South Dakota. When he left the army, he became a cowboy. However, he eventually returned to Illinois, where he met his w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chicago Outfit
The Chicago Outfit (also known as the Outfit, the Chicago Mafia, the Chicago Mob, the Chicago crime family, the South Side Gang or The Organization) is an Italian-American organized crime syndicate or crime family based in Chicago, Illinois, that originated in the city's South Side in the early 1910s. It is part of the larger Italian-American Mafia. The Outfit rose to power in the 1920s under the control of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone and the period was marked by bloody gang wars for control of the distribution of illegal alcohol during Prohibition. Since then, the Outfit has been involved in a wide range of criminal activities, including loansharking, illegal gambling, prostitution, extortion, political corruption and murder. Capone was convicted of income tax evasion in 1931 and the Outfit was next run by Paul Ricca. He shared power with Tony Accardo from 1943 until his death in 1972; Accardo became the sole power in the Outfit upon Ricca's death and was one of the longest sit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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William Morris Bioff
William Morris ("Willie") Bioff (October 12, 1900 – November 4, 1955) was a Jewish-American organized crime figure who operated as a Chicago pimp and corrupt union leader between the 1920s and the 1940s. Using his position as head of the movie production workers' union, Bioff helped Chicago Outfit boss Frank Nitti successfully extort millions of dollars from Hollywood film studios by using the threat of a general strike that would paralyze the American film industry. Criminal career Bioff was born and briefly raised in a kosher Jewish household in Chicago, but his father kicked him out on the street when he was eight years old. Bioff soon became involved in criminal ventures, beginning with petty theft, then minor protection rackets and working his way up to pimping in Chicago's Levee vice district, of which he was later convicted in 1922. Bioff later worked for Harry and Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik where, through Guzik, Bioff met Al Capone and later Frank "The Enforcer" Nit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Purple Gang
The Purple Gang, also known as the Sugar House Gang, was a criminal mob of bootleggers and hijackers comprised predominantly of Jewish gangsters. They operated in Detroit, Michigan, during the 1920s of the Prohibition era and came to be Detroit's dominant criminal gang. Excessive violence and infighting caused the gang to destroy itself in the 1930s. History The Michigan legislature prohibited the sale of liquor in 1917, three years before national Prohibition was established by a constitutional amendment. Along with temperance supporters, industrialist Henry Ford owned the River Rouge plant and desired a sober workforce, so he backed the Damon Act, a state law that, along with the Wiley Act, prohibited virtually all possession, manufacture, or sale of alcohol starting in 1918. Detroit is close to Ohio, so bootleggers and others would import liquor from Toledo where it was still legal. They also smuggled liquor in from Canada. Judges took a lenient view of offenders. The ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Abe Bernstein
Abe Bernstein (c. 1892 – March 7, 1968) was a Detroit-based Jewish-American organized crime figure and leader of the infamous Prohibition-era Purple Gang. Early life Born in New York City, Abe Bernstein and his brothers Joseph "Bill Bugs", Raymond, and Isadore Bernstein were children of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. They moved as youths with their family to Detroit, which had a growing industrial economy based on automobile manufacturing. During their teenage years, they joined a juvenile street gang that was the precursor to the adult Purple Gang. By the beginning of Prohibition, Bernstein and his brothers had emerged as leading members of the gang. As the Purple Gang members matured, they quickly gained a reputation along the Detroit waterfront as ruthless and violent hijackers. However, they normally attracted little attention from police during the Prohibition era, as their victims were usually either rumrunners or rival gangs such as the Little Jewish Navy ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dutch Schultz
Dutch Schultz (born Arthur Simon Flegenheimer; August 6, 1901October 24, 1935) was an American mobster. Based in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s, he made his fortune in organized crime-related activities, including bootlegging and the numbers racket. Weakened by two tax evasion trials led by prosecutor Thomas Dewey, Schultz's rackets were also threatened by fellow mobster Lucky Luciano. In an attempt to avert his conviction, Schultz asked the Commission for permission to kill Dewey, which they refused. When Schultz disobeyed them and made an attempt to kill Dewey, the Commission ordered his murder in 1935. Early life Arthur Simon Flegenheimer was born on August 6, 1901, to German Jewish immigrants Herman and Emma (Neu) Flegenheimer, who had married in Manhattan on November 10, 1900. He had a younger sister, Helen, born in 1904. Herman Flegenheimer apparently abandoned his family, and Emma is listed as divorced in the 1910 US Census. (In her 1932 petition for U.S. cit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Otto Berman
Otto Biederman, known as Otto "Abbadabba" Berman (August 10, 1891 – October 24, 1935) was an accountant for American organized crime. He is known for having coined the phrase "Nothing personal, it's just business." Biography Early life Berman was born in a Jewish family in New York City. At age fifteen, he was arrested and tried for attempted rape but was found not guilty. He later became an accountant, well known for his ability to figure complex mathematical equations and algebraic expressions in a matter of seconds, without the use of paper or pen. He met and befriended writer Damon Runyon. Runyon based his recurring character Regret on Berman, portrayed by character actor Lynne Overman in the movie version of Runyon's story, ''Little Miss Marker''. 1930s In the 1930s Berman became the accountant for, and advisor to, gangster Dutch Schultz. Berman was the handicapper for Cincinnati's Coney Island track in 1935, prior to his death. A Coney Island badge was located in his ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |