Jews, not Italians, at the center of the American Mafia underworld

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Lansky

Meyer LanskyMeyer Lansky (born Majer Suchowliński in Grodno (Belarus), July 4, 1902 – January 15, 1983) was a gangster who, with Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was instrumental in the development of The Commission (and possibly the "National Crime Syndicate") in the United States.Lansky also headed up Murder, Inc. for The Commission and was largely responsible for the Mafia's development of Las Vegas and a financially beneficial relationship with the corrupt Cuban regime of Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar. Although Jewish Mafia, Lansky undoubtedly played a central role in the Italian Mafia's organization and consolidation of the criminal underworld (although the full extent of this role has come under some debate).

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/books/review/Cohen.t.html?ex=1316750400&en=b87b40951da78da4&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Kosher Nostra By RICH COHENPublished: September 24, 2006The Holocaust bought the Jews 60 years of protection, six decades in which it was taboo to suggest that a Jewish conspiracy, with its dirty tentacles everywhere, had the system in its grip. After news of the camps spread across America, the Ivy League colleges relaxed quotas, the white-shoe firms started hiring, the country clubs let Jews on the greens. People suddenly realized that if, in less than a decade, the Jewish members of the most sophisticated society in the world could be isolated, stripped of property and killed en masse, perhaps they had not been so powerful after all. Well, 60 years are up. So here we go!In “Supermob,” his book about the legendary Chicago fixer Sidney Korshak (1907-96), a lawyer for the Capone outfit and counselor to Hollywood moguls, notably the onetime MCA chairman Lew Wasserman, Gus Russo retells the story of our time as a conspiracy of Jews. (Russo is also the author of “The Outfit: The Role of Chicago’s Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America.”) This is how he begins: “Two types of power dominated the 20th century: the visible, embodied in politicians, corporate moguls, crime bosses and law enforcement; and the invisible, concentrated in the hands of a few power brokers generally of Eastern European and Jewish immigrant heritage. Operating safely in the shadows, these men often pulled the strings of the visible power brokers. Although they remained nameless to the public, they were notorious among a smattering of enterprising investigators who, over decades, followed their brilliant, amoral and frequently criminal careers. The late Senate investigator and author Walter Sheridan dubbed them the Supermob.”[...]

http://www.forward.com/articles/mafia-jews-inside-a-genuine-cabal/

Mafia Jews: Inside a Genuine CabalBy Lisa KeysFri. Oct 27, 2006Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America’s Hidden Power BrokersBy Gus RussoThe Jewish people are instructed to be a “light unto the nations” — and what society could use more illumination than the underworld? So goes the story of mob lawyer Sidney Korshak, whose partnerships with Chicago gangsters led him to be named the most powerful lawyer in the world by the FBI. As part of his, er, “covenant,” he steered the mob toward a path of respectability, serving as its go-between with the white-collar world.Sidney who, you ask? Those with a passing pop-culture familiarity with the Mafia know that Chicago was famous for its Italian Mafiosos, like Al Capone and Tony Accardo. New York City, of course, had its share of “tough Jews,” including Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. But for much of the past century, the real center of mob power was a Chicago-born Jewish lawyer — or so says investigative reporter Gus Russo in his new book, “Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America’s Hidden Power Brokers.”The Supermob — the term was coined by late Senate investigator Walter Sheridan — was, according to Russo, a group of mostly Jewish men who made a fortune by collaborating with Chicago’s underworld. Generally, these men took mob money and funneled it into such respectable outlets as real estate and the burgeoning film industry.The fact that these men were Jewish is crucial to Russo’s story. His telling of the Supermob tale begins in the Pale of Settlement and quickly advances to the Lawndale section of Chicago, a place so crowded with Jews that it was known as “Kosher Calcutta.” There, living amid crowded streets and a corrupt civic landscape, is a band of young, first-generation immigrant Jewish kids who are determined to make it big in American life — at any moral price. These Jewish gangsters would never make the headlines; instead, they’d serve as the behind-the-scenes masterminds of the mob.And according to Russo, this is the role that Jews traditionally played. “Throughout history,” he writes, “the Jews were never the public leaders; they were always the kingmakers and power brokers.They knew from experience that a Jew would not get a top spot, however low the level, because of the existing anti-Semitism, even in America. They were always aware that their wealth and position in society could be noticed and another pogrom would ensue. Thus they worked surreptitiously, choosing to focus on the substrata of a business or an event.”[...]Korshak lived the kind of riveting life that’s ripe for fiction — and indeed, he allegedly inspired the Tom Hagen character, played by Robert Duvall, in “The Godfather.” (Incidentally, Korshak was instrumental in securing Al Pacino for the film’s title role, as well as in staving off interference from the Mafia and the Italian-American Civil Rights League.) And yet, Russo forgoes narrative in favor of a heavily sourced, academic approach. The result is a brilliantly researched book that too often reads like a term paper. There are some interesting parts: The chapter on the Chicago Outfit’s involvement in the creation of Las Vegas — it actually predates that of the New York gangsters — is particularly compelling, while the chapter on the Supermob’s seizing of Japanese Americans’ property during World War II illuminates.