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In an L.A. delicatessen, a group of Brooklyn natives gets together to discuss basketball, boxing, the weather back east, and the Jewish gangsters of yesteryear. Meyer Lansky. Bugsy Siegel. Louis Lepke, the self-effacing mastermind of Murder, Inc. Red Levine, the Orthodox hit man who refused to kill on the Sabbath. Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, who looked like a mama's boy but once buried a rival alive. These are just some of the vibrant, vicious characters Rich Cohen's father reminisced about and the author evokes so pungently in Tough Jews.
Tracing a generation of Jewish gangsters from the candy stores of Brownsville to the clubhouses of the Lower East Side--and, occasionally, to suites at the Waldorf--Cohen creates a densely anecdotal and gruesomely funny history of muscle, moxie, and money. Filled with fixers and schlammers, the squeal of tires and the rattle of gunfire, his book shatters stereotypes as deftly as its subjects once shattered kneecaps.
Forgotten Gangsters
| Customer Rating:   | In this book, the author seems intent on proving the importance of Jews in the mob which is an aspect of the mafia few knowledgeable people forget. The author is successful in telling the story of the Jewish element of the mafia. Unfortunately, the author gets in the way of the story far too often. Retelling the second-hand tales of his father while injecting himself into the story is a big distraction.
The 270 pages are largely a cross section of Jews in the mafia with Abe Reles seeming to be the greatest focus. Far from the definitive story much of the story is anecdotal and may be scarred by exaggerations. There are numerous good books on many of the individual characters in this book. While the story's in this book has a Cohen family tint, the extra details did not add much for me.
I noticed the reviews on this book seem quite divided. The novice on mafia reader may find more appreciation in this book. Any comparison to Mario Puzo are grossly unfair. The stories of Arnold Rothstein, Louis Lepke, and even Murder, Inc. have been told better |
Tells a lot
| Customer Rating: | | This book, and more than that, some comments by so-called-jews (I sincenrely hope they're just antisemites trying to make jews look bad) tells a lot about some jews' psyche. |
Murder, Inc., With a Bang!
| Customer Rating: | | The Jewish version of "GoodFellas." A brutal and, at times, curiously humorous depiction of what life was probably like for the cold-blooded Murder, Incorporated, killers who thrived in Brooklyn during the Thirties and Forties. Thugs with such colorful monickers as "Pittsburgh Phil," "Kid Twist," "Dasher," "Bugsy," "Pretty," and "Happy" (the latter so called because he never smiled) are among the violent cast of characters whom Rich Cohen vividly brings back to life in these pages as he details their reign of terror. A highly entertaining read which in all likelihood would make a good movie. Are you listening, Mr. Scorsese? |
An Unfortunate (but colorful) chapter in American Jewish History.
| Customer Rating: | Tough Jews is a book about Jewish gangsters, and how they pretty much faded after World War II. It leaves the reader to wonder exactly what created this phenomena and why it died out. The criminals whose stories Cohen tells, like Bugsy Siegel, Lepke Buchalter, Meyer Lansky, Kid Twist, Joe Amberg, were all products of harsh years. In this day and age, Jewish boys go to college. In the 20's and 30's it was much harder for Jews to go to college and have careers. It seems as though bootlegging and loan-sharking were a more attractive alternative to the rag trade. It seems as though Meyer Lansky slipped into crime because of a lack of opportunity, not necessarily greed. When his son said he wanted to be a gangster, Lansky replied "why would you want to do that when you can go to college!" With World War II, the GI Bill gave Jews the chance to go to college, and become doctors, lawyers, accountants, and....oh well, you know the rest!
It wasn't just poor opportunities that fostered the Jewish gangsters. Monk Eastman and Bugsy Siegel had emotional problems. Did Eastman have ADHD? His habits appear to be symptoms. Bugsy Siegel, a prolific rapist, had several characteristics that I see in kids in Special Ed. Shonder Burns, a Jewish Cleveland gangster (not mentioned in this book) may also have had "special" problems, along with an abusive childhood in Jewish orphanages. The Purple Gang of Detroit (also not mentioned) were a sick bunch. It's kind of hard to admire people like this. Then again, there was no Ritalin or Special Ed in those days, so a kid who couldn't do well in school was out of luck.
Cohen himself idolizes the Jewish gangsters, yet he admits that their world is gone. The Jews had left the Lower East Side by the 1950's, and the world of "Pretty" Amberg and Monk Eastman is long gone. Growing up, I admired gangsters. But when I asked my folks about the Jewish gangsters (rarely seen in the movies), nobody seemed to care. I guess Jews aren't proud of the Jewish gangs, any more than Italians are of Al Capone. Since Hollywood honchos like Meyer, Warner, and Goldwyn were all Jewish, they probably didn't want to draw attention to themselves with movies about gangsters named Abe and Mendy.
But maybe there is a reason why some of us admire these men. The Jewish people are often stereotyped as weak, cowardly, and timid, with an emphasis on intellect at the expense of the human body. Our history is one long parade of pogroms, expulsions, mass killings, and abuse, until 1948, when the Jews of Palestine defeated the Arab armies. It wasn't until the Israeli War of Independence that the Jews were seen as conquering heroes. Perhaps when you come from a persecuted nation, you admire those punch, kick, clobber, slash, burn, and strangle their way through life. |
Factually inaccurate
| Customer Rating: | | I do enjoy the fact that a book was made about the jewish-american gangsters, however the book is so factually inaccurate that it made me cringe. Orgabized crime seems to be one of th esubjects where a person can do no research and just quote inaccuracies put forth in other books and completly get away with it. |
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