Talk About Gangsters Was Common in My Family

JULY/AUGUST 2008 / MOMENT 43 BENNY GAMSON, AKA. Benny the Meat tacted Benny’s daughter Michelle. She told him ball, was short, squat and sharp-eyed. He was a that her father was said to have buried his sav small time mobster, a gonif, a petty thief and ings in a cigar box in a canyon in Los Angeles crapshooter who branched out into organized and to have given a safe deposit box key to his crime in the corrupt Los Angeles of the 1940s. wife. But when he was killed, Michelle’s moth In 1945, Benny had a run-in with a nattily er panicked and threw the key away. The dressed fellow mobster named Mickey Cohen. money was never found. After hammering Cohen senseless with a piece Michelle Gamson was four when he was of lead pipe, Benny teamed up with hitman slain. “My mother had told me he died in an George Levinson. But despite a cocked Mauser automobile accident going to get me a birth under the bed sheets, a .32 in the closet and day gift,” she says. It was her stepfather who two sawed-off shotguns, Benny and George later revealed the truth. “I was 19 when he told were gunned down Godfather-style at their me that there was a hit on my dad,” she Hollywood apartment on a hot August night. explains. “I wanted to contact Mickey Cohen Neighbors reported seeing a black car race but my mother said, ‘Don’t get involved, don’t from the scene. stir nothing up.’” The gangland slaying She remembers her father lovingly, as a “My mother had told remains unsolved to this “genius” who watches over her. “My father me he died in an day, but stories about was a very good man,” she says. “He was Benny were passed down never convicted.” automobile accident in hush-hush fashion through his family, final going to get me a ly reaching the ears of birthday gift...I was 19 Josh Gamson, Benny’s NOW THAT MANY DECADES have second cousin twice flown by, scholars, enthusiasts and even descen when my stepfather removed. “My father and dants are now happily stirring up the past to his sister had heard bits take a closer look at Jewish gangsters. The told me that there was and pieces,” says Gam savvy graduates of New York’s street gangs, a hit on my dad.” son, 45. “Then someone mostly impoverished children of immigrants, doing research contacted joined the underworld of the Roaring Twen my aunt, mentioning a ties, becoming involved in shadowy dealings Benny, and it was confirmed that this was that—in addition to violent crime—included Benny ‘the Meatball.’” racketeering, gambling and bootlegging and, in A sociology professor at the University of a few cases, narcotics dealing. San Francisco, Gamson was intrigued to dis Those who rose to notoriety remain house cover a lawbreaker in the family. “I like collect hold names. Anyone familiar with the charac ing family lore,” he says. He read what he ter Meyer Wolfsheim in F. Scott Fitzgerald's could, which was limited, since Benny wasn’t a novel The Great Gatsby, or Nathan Detroit in gangster of the stature of, say, fellow Jews the Damon Runyon story, The Idyll of Miss Arnold Rothstein, Meyer Lansky and Benjamin Sarah Brown (the basis of the musical Guys and “Bugsy” Siegel, who have inspired books, films Dolls), will recognize Arnold Rothstein. Bom and plays. (Benny the Meatball does make it in 1882, he has been called “the J.R Morgan into The Encyclopedia of Organized Crime and of the underworld” and is credited with paving CO figured in a 1948 movie, Jinx Money.) Josh the way for Jews in organized crime. A profes cc 0 Si Gamson searched for family members who had sional gambler who later turned to bootleg 1 E known his cousin. “Benny’s sister said that he ging, Rothstein transformed petty thievery t CD had a pharmacy,” says Gamson. “She referred into big business. According to Rich Cohen, d < CE Q. to him as a good boy. She said he was in the author of the 1998 book, Tough Jews: Fathers, <3 z wrong place at the wrong time.” Sons and Gangster Dreams, Rothstein was one z CL o Gamson’s inquiries paid off when he con of the first to see Prohibition as a means to 44 JULY/AUGUST 2008 wealth and who “understood the truths of American Jewish history at Brandeis Universi early century capitalism (hypocrisy, exclusion, ty. “On the other hand, had they been rabbis, greed) and came to dominate them.” Roth- scholars, doctors, lawyers, it would have been stein, best known as the man who fixed the more respectable. To be a gangster, especially 1919 World Series, was a rich man's son who one who got caught, was a shanda." showed young hoodlums of the Bowery how Now that the American gangster era is fod to have style. Indeed, Sicilian-American gang der for popular culture, the shanda element has ster “Lucky” Luciano would later say, Roth- nearly disappeared. “Gangsters may have been stein “taught me how to dress.” shocking at the time but today, several gener Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, boss of Murder, ations later, they’re exotic,” says Sarna. That Inc., the gang of Jews and Italians that carried gangsters from previous generations are now out hundreds of murders, most of them to some extent pop icons should not be sur unsolved, on behalf of the mob, is often con prising. “America has always had a certain sidered the most ruthless. His colleagues in interest in oudaws,” he says, “and once they are crime included Arthur “Dutch Schultz” Fle- dead and the whole issue is history there is a genheimer, Irving “Waxey” Gordon, Abner certain excitement about it.” “Longy” Zwillman and Morris “Moe” Dalitz. In their time, gangsters operated with a cer As in other professions, Jews were noted for tain aura—real or imagined—of wealth, glam their intelligence, particularly Meyer Lansky. our and power, in contrast to the powerless feelings experienced by many Jewish immi “Lansky was a genius, a visionary, who built s o Las Vegas,” says Jonathan Sarna, professor of grants and later to the sense of victimhood o s JULY/AUGUST 2008 / MOMENT 45 brought on by the Holocaust. “There were Although there are (and always will be) Jews Jews who said, ‘We’re oppressed and we need who stray into illegal territory, the storied era some tough Jews,”’ says Sarna. “People of the cigar-smoking, womanizing Jewish gang- admired them for being ‘alrightniks,’ for ‘mak ster-thugs packing heat has vanished. “For the ing it’ in America.” most part it was a one-generation phenome But generally gang non, distinguishing it from the Italian experi “At times the criminal sters produced more ence,” Sarna says. “There was no desire to see shame than security for the youngsters go into the family business.” ancestor almost their families. This shame has begun to becomes a folk hero: fade, however. “The THERE’S A CRIMINAL in every Jewish People feel, ‘I'm not like higher the grass on the family, according to author and genealogist grave, the less you feel Ron Arons, including his own. Arons, 52, has that but they’re making the responsibility,” says made it his job to help people who are curious Washington, DC foren to dig up information about shady ancestors. movies about him.’ sic psychiatrist Lise Van There are criminals whose sons became rab So they feel a sense of Susteren. “People lose bis and rabbis whose sons wound up as crimi the sense of outrage. nals. Arons’ great grandfather Isaac is among pride without the Also, there are no the latter. It all came to light when Arons inno longer people around cently set out to explore his forbears—search baggage.” who are suffering from ing through birth certificates, marriage licenses the criminal acts. At and death certificates—and turned up three dif times the criminal ferent birthplaces for Isaac. But what really cap ancestor almost becomes a folk hero: People tured his attention were criminal records, feel, ‘I’m not like that but they’re making which revealed that Isaac had been an inmate movies about him.’ So it’s a sense of pride with at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. out the baggage.” Arons’ parents had died before he learned Continued on page 58 46 JULY/AUGUST 2008 Continued from page 46 about Isaac, and he felt as though he had whom would qualify for senior discounts, Sharon Blumberg, whose grandfather, been “struck by a thunderbolt. I was how many knew of criminals in their past. Caiman Cooper, was executed at Sing raised as a goody two-shoes,” he says. Yet Roughly a third raised their hands. One Sing when she was six months old. On a looking back, he remembered a boyhood woman thrust both arms into the air and balmy April day in 1950, he and three incident that hinted at an errant ancestor. shouted, “Two! cronies had held up a Reader’s Digest While visiting his grandparents’ home in truck, stealing $40,000 and leaving a mes Brooklyn, he remarked lightly, “If I’m a senger to die from a bullet wound. bad boy today, I’ll have to go to Sing He remarked lightly, “If Although an insanity plea by Cooper, the Sing.” His grandmother pulled him aside I’m a bad boy today, I'll mastermind and lookout, proved unsuc and scolded, “Never say ‘Sing Sing’ in cessful, he managed to delay his execution front of your grandfather!” have to go to Sing for several years (considerably longer Arons went on to write The Jews of than fellow inmates Julius and Ethel Sing Sing and.

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