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

A great and easy read. Learned a lot about how murder inc worked.

I am currently reading this book. My interest comes from my grandfather who was a close friend of Jake Guzik. Rochaway’s descriprion of Guzik bears no resemblance to the man my grandfather and my mother knew. He is described as of subnormal intelligence, personally sloppy, with bad personal hygiene. He is, at the same time credited with success as Capone’s financial advisor. That makes no sense whatever. A man with the IQ of 82 cited by Rockaway, could not have achieved what Guzik actually achieved. Aside from that my mother described him as a well-manicured guy who wore only bespoke clothing, the opposite of Rockaway’s description. Also, my grandfather was the same way about himself and would not have been a close friend to the slob Rockaway describes. I never met Guzik and hold no brief for any of those people. The stories were fun to hear but I stayed away from having anything to do with those people.Rockaway is an entertaining writer, but I henceforward will doubt what he says about the people he writes about.

What a book! This is not a lengthy biography here. What you do have is a wonderful compilation of information concerning a band of Jewish criminals. This was "The Gilded Age of Crime". Robert Rockaway, the author, offers a nice, easy style which makes the book very clear, and comprehensible. This is a wonderful book for anyone to embark on their "racketeer reading". From here, you can pick a certain gangster, and extend your knowledge further by doing more research on this particular individual.Some of my personal favorites listed here are: Meyer Lansky, Lepke Buchalter and Gurrah Shapiro, Abner (Longy) Zwillman, and Murder, Inc. which included Harry Strauss (aka Pittsburgh Phil). There is a crew of others present within this volume; however I cannot name them all. One person that I learned a great deal about was Longy Zwillman from Newark, NJ. Zwillman was a legend in his time. I never knew the power this man possessed. Longy was a member of the "Big Six" which were the elite -- the premier Jewish Gangster Echelon on the East Coast. However, that is just the tip of the iceberg. Zwillman controlled one of the principal bootlegging operations, importing almost 40% of alcohol into the US. The rest you will have to read for yourself.The book goes into some detail comparing the Jewish and Italian mobs at that time. Rockaway brings some interesting topics to light - like the fact that a Jewish gangster for the most part was not looked up to in his community. Furthermore, his family was ashamed to discover that such a scoundrel was living among them. On the other hand, Italian gangsters were worshipped in their neighborhood. Also, everyone in their family knew that he possessed some kind of power, and demanded a certain amount of respect. This leads me to an interesting point.A worthy note to appreciate in this book (as in many others) is the following: Jewish gangsters were a one-time generation of racketeers. They displayed intelligence, willfulness, cunning, 'moxy', and that all essential - murder instinct. They also proved to have much more common sense than the Italian mobs at the time, in the sense that they were able to pull themselves out of the street environment. By no means did they want their immediate family, or future generations getting involved in any type of criminal activity. Jewish mobsters had made their money the hard way -- in the old fashioned streets of America fighting off the `wolf of poverty'. Their children were to have a much more fortunate and cushioned life than the ones experienced by their parents. The Italian mobs on the other hand, were in the never-ending struggle of consolidating their power in the street. This is why the Italian Mafia is still around today (barely), and the Jewish community has moved on to bigger and better things...

“The icepick method was favored by many hitmen because it made the victim’s death appear to be the result of natural causes… After examining the corpse, doctors generally concluded that the cause of death was a cerebral hemorrhage.” (Page 153)Are you kidding me? When the ear drum has been ripped to hell and brains and blood are draining out of somebody’s head, a coroner is not going to notice this was an act of extreme violence? Not without a bribe they won’t!Mom to ‘Ice Pick’ Israel Alderman, “Darling, you have human brains on your collar. Are you okay?”Ice Pick to Mom, “Yeah, Mamma. Not to worry. It’s just been a long day.”No, that passage was not in the book. But it could have been, so satirical was this flippant puff piece for some of the nastiest people ever to haunt the streets of America. True, the book is bound pretty well, has pictures, an index, and even a bibliography. True, I am not familiar or an expert with what makes a gangster book “good”. I just found its light-hearted thrust disgusting, morally bankrupt and highly duplicitous. You know duplicitous? That means intentionally misleading.For instance, as regards drug running there is precious little in this book except adroit distancing. But when I did a search a few minutes ago I found this:“Maariv, September 2, 1994 The Jewish Laundry of Drug MoneyBy Ben Kaspit, the New York correspondent Notes and translation by Israel Shahak “Rabbi Yosef Crozer fell because of his big mouth. "I launder money, a lot of money", he once told an acquaintance. "Every day I take $300,000 from 47 Street in Manhattan, bring it to the synagogue, give a receipt and then take a commission". The man who heard that story from Crozer was, how sad, an undercover Jewish agent of the U.S. agency for fighting drug use, DEA. A month later, in February 1990, Crozer was arrested by agents on his way from 47 Street to Brooklyn. They found on him prayer books, five passports, and also $280.000 dollars in cash in the trunk of his car. He traveled that route every day. He would arrive at the gold trading oflice on 47 Street in the afternoon, and leave shortly later, carrying suitcases and bags loaded with cash. From there he drove to the "Hessed Ve'Tzadaka" ["Mercy and Charity"] synagogue in Brooklyn, which was turned into an instrument for laundering millions of dollars, the revenue from drug sales in the New York area. “Catch that? DRUG sales = addictions, economic hardship, crimes, overdose... destroyed lives. Countless souls once with beautiful potential ruined, not by “strong predators”, as if from some healthy ecosystem, but rather cannibals that feed on fellow human beings. And “They had no successors”? Wow. May Cinderella live carefree in a land of lambs.

Fascinating, although sometimes a little too much detail, but does fill in a lot of hidden history. What mama would have worried about.

This book is a fascinating read; the story of men like Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Dutch Schultz and many others far less well known.For a time there was an extraordinary number of Jews in the highest reaches of organised crime in America. It would not be too much to state that Lansky was the man who made the Mafia a business corporation rather than simply the crude thugs that had been the norm before.The author has interviewed many of the gangsters personally or members of their family who knew them well.It is a detailed, absorbing and readable account of a time in American history that is perhaps behind us but none the less fascinating and relevant for all that.Thoroughly recommended!

Absolutely enthralling! The author conveys not only the crimes and lives of notable and obscure Jewish gangsters in a captivating way (rather than just resulting to biographical exposition (a sin plaguing many mafia books)), but he contributes an historical and personal analysis that gives such characters depth to them that is rarely done in other works. Truly a masterpiece that combines an almost fictional narrative with the facts, making it a book I return to time and time again

Excellent book. Delivery prompt too.

great

For its genre, I found it to be a most enjoyable and enlightening read. I've already recommended it on to a few friends.