Jewish Gangsters?

They wore tefillin, joined synagogues, and ran some of the most notorious criminal operations of the 20th century. This course explores the surprising and complicated history of Jewish organized crime, from the mythologized American mobsters—Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel—born of Lower East Side poverty and exclusion, to the far darker story of Zwi Migdal, a transnational trafficking network that preyed on Jewish women fleeing pogroms. We examine why these histories emerged, how Jewish communities fought back, and why "gangster" means something very different depending on which story you're telling.