Customer Reviews

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

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I love authors who revise their work instead of just recycling it. The first edition of But He Was Good to His Mother was good but marred by one embarrassing error: it repeated as fact the fictional murder of Moe Dalitz from the late William Roemer's novel War of the Godfathers. Rockaway was not the first author to make this mistake--Roemer and his publisher should have made it clearer their book was fiction--but the Dalitz murder is rightfully deleted from this edition and there is expanded, factual, and accurate information throughout on Jewish gangsters, including such legendary figures as Meyer Lansky (whom Rockaway interviewed), Bugsy Siegel, Lepke and Gurrah, Kid Cann, Dutch Schultz, Waxey Gordon, Longy Zwillman, Big Jack Zelig, Boo Boo Hoff (who introduced the tommy gun to Philadelphia's Prohibition underworld), Mickey Cohen, the Purple Gang and others. The rise and fall of the Jewish gangsters, their relationships to the Jewish community (roles in "upward mobility" and even as sometime defenders of their people); to the Italian mob; and to 20th Century urban America are explored wonderfully and insightfully. Rounding out the book are ample source notes and an excellent bibliography. This book is a labor of love by an author who likes to get his facts straight.

A seldom-covered aspect of true crime history and Jewish history, "But He was Good to His Mother" is a fine read for anyone interested in either. It delves into the histories of several gangsters, their misdeeds, relationships to the Jewish community and anecdotes that shed some light on what these crimelords were really like. Plenty of photos are included.

Rockaway does a fairly good job of striking a balance in tackling a delicate subject. He points out the occasional admirable deeds of the gangsters (protecting American Jews from anti-semites, for example) while making it quite clear that these were very bad men. He fesses up that these killers and lawbreakers were admired by some in the community, but by no means all.

Occasionally, books about influential Jews get a little hokey when they gush over how the values of the Jewish community produced so many great people. (As though, without centuries of respect for learning by the Jews, Einstein might never have come up with relativity; whatever.) As a Jew myself, I think it feels more honest and refreshing to see it acknowledged that these same values and shared history produced some no-goodniks along the way, too. And ones who broke the stereotypes about Jews at that.

If anything, I'd have liked more information, more stories about the gangsters in the book. Especially nice would have been more on their role in the general public's perception and pop culture. The book doesn't tell you that the purple gang was infamous enough to be mentioned in Elvis Presley's JailHouse Rock, no opinion on who did a better job of playing Dutch Schultz (Tim Roth in "Hoodlum" or James Remar in "The Cotton Club"?), no word on whether Mickey Cohen was really as daft as James Ellroy portrays him, no mention of "Bugsy" or "The Godfather, part 2".

Still, I liked the book. I wouldn't label it an offer you can't refuse, but it's an offer it wouldn't kill you to accept.

After reading more than fifty books by crime experts, I was thrilled to find this pick. This is in my opinion, one of the best accounts of jewish gangsters. More than sensational headlines Mr. Rockaway dives into the soul of the gangster. I was especially proud of the reference to my father, Allen Smiley, and the ancedote that went with it.

Robert A. Rockaway, an historian and a member of the Department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University, wrote this engaging, often funny history of several dozen Jewish American gangsters from the beginning of Jewish settlement in the US until the end of World War II when the number of Jewish criminals declined sharply.
Jews have been known to have made a significant positive contribution to American and world life, far larger than their representation in society, but being human, there were also Jews at the nether end of the social spectrum.
In 1928, Rabbi Mortimore J. Cohen bemoaned the shame "that has come to all Israel in the crimes of a lawless few. What disgrace is ours through these men, less than human, who have, without let or hindrance, dragged the Jewish name in the mud and filth of murder and corruption."
When Jews first came to the United States, they were praised for being among the country's most law-abiding and least violent citizens. This situation changed around 1880 when there was a large influx of Jews into the United States due to pogroms and other oppressions in Europe and Russia. These new arrivals were forced to live in slum-like conditions.
In 1886, a chief of detectives published a compendium of "America's leading professional criminals" most of whom lived in New York. Over four percent of the men on the list were Jewish, but this figure is low; Jews represented ten percent of the New York population.
Rockaway shows that virtually every one of these criminals was Jewish in heritage only. They knew nothing or close to nothing about Judaism and also lacked a secular education. Some could not even read.
Rockaway's stories are fascinating. For example, a leading rabbi of the Agudat Israel, an ultra Orthodox political party in Israel, convinced an American gangster to invest $100,000 to build homes for young, strictly Orthodox couples. Instead, the rabbi ripped off the gangster and used the money to build himself a hotel. The gangster sued the rabbi and won.
One gangster killed people, but when a friend of his died, he "religiously" stood outside of the funeral parlor because he was a kohen, a descendant of Aaron the first priest, who is not allowed under Jewish law to come near a dead body.
Another murderer, with a similar twisted concept of Judaism, tried not to kill anyone on the Sabbath. If he had no choice, he would put on a tallit, a prayer shawl, over his shoulders and pray before killing the person. Needless to say, the misguided criminal did not understand that the wearing of the tallit was designed to teach the Jew not to violate the law.
Unlike the Italian mafia, the Jewish gangsters had a semblance of conscience and generally did everything to assure that their family - siblings and children - would not become involved in crime. Thus Rockaway could relate that there was no instance where a Jewish criminal's child followed in his footsteps.
Rockaway tells rather remarkable tales of how the gangsters showed their love to their mothers and how they protected fellow Jews from anti-Semites. In fact some gangsters were involved in philanthropy and some made sure that the newly formed State of Israel received weapons in 1948 so that they could defend themselves against invading Arab forces.
In short, this is an unusual delightful story.

The title of this book comes from the fact that Jewish gangsters took a very protective attitude towards their mothers, and did everything they could to keep them and other family members in the dark regarding their unsavory behavior. Gangsters may have led immoral lives regarding their so-called profession, but would turn weepy when the subject of their mother came up. Perhaps this was due in part to the fact they knew their mother would be disappointed in them. Unlike those in the mafia the offspring of Jewish gangsters did not intermarry with others so their profession did not extend beyond one generation. I found the book to be well written, and what I especially liked was the number of photos of gangsters I have read about in previous books, but of which photos have been scanty. Gyp the Blood (square name Harry Horowitz), Irving Wexler (Waxey Gordon), Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro, Abe Reles, Harry Strauss (Pittsburgh Phil), and a family photo of the Purple Gang were all included in addition to photos of Dutch Schultz (square name Arthur Flegenheimer), Jack Guzik, Lepke Buchalter, and numerous others. This book is a worthy addition to my gangster library, and you can purloin this book for only $10.00.

This is absolutely the best book on Jewish gangsters that I have read. I just received the copy of this newly published version of But-He Was Good To His Mother and I found it to be fast paced, very enjoyable as well as factual and well researched. I found the authors interviews with old-time Jewish mobsters especially fascinating.

Provides a fascinating, carefully researched history of lower class criminal behavior in the Jewish American tenements in the first half of the 20th Century. Jewish thugs in New York, Newark, Detroit and Cleveland are described in detail.

The author uses good sources for authentic stories about the activites of the Jewish mobsters. A good read and a good conversation piece.

The apt title was chosen due to a response Rockaway's mother gave when he was talking about a Jewish gangster - "But he was good to his mother!" What seemed to be common among most Jewish gangsters was the fact that they had strong family ties, and were unwilling for any of their families to get involved in any of their heinous crimes. In some cases what they did was a mystery to their families.

The book is engaging and touches on the lives of the most notorious Jewish American gangsters. With the `main' Jewish gangsters mentioned, Rockaway gives an entertaining background into their upbringing, life of crime, death, and if they survived, life after crime. It gives an insight into the psychology behind these gangsters which is fascinating. The writing style is an easy read and leaves you wanting to know more about them. It certainly whets the appetite.

Although hard to put down, the book does have its flaws. I cannot comment on historical accuracy, although the information is gathered from numerous sources, including FBI files, family members, and hearsay. One flaw with the book is that the pictures of the gangsters are in random places. It would have been more helpful to either have them all in one place, either at the beginning or in the centre of the book. As a result the book can be a bit confusing. Furthermore, Rockaway does have a tendency to jump around with the characters. This however, could also be a positive as they didn't live their lives in isolation of one another, although it could have possibly been better handled.

On the whole a most enjoyable read.

I was surprised to learn that there were so many Jewish criminals and that they were so viscious. Yes, I had heard of some of them before, but a lot of names new to me were in the book.
The author presented a rounded view of the criminals: their relationships with their families, their relatioships with their colleagues, and their feelings about being Jewish. It is to the author's credit that he did not try to excuse their behavior or present them as anything but criminals. His account presented them as humnan beings, but not as sympathetic characters. Once started, I had trouble putting the book down.