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

Rating:
Summary: Big Tsuris
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Big Tsuris
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: insightful
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Better Than Ever
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: YES MOTHER, I AM A THUG
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Jewish criminals objectively presented by a Jew
Review: The book is a reasonably objective record of the fact that even though the word "mafia" is Italian, not all gangsters were (or are) Italian (and thus Catholic)... many were Jews or WASPs for that matter. US Gangsterism was (and is) a USA product, partly because of the ethnic heterogeneity produced by immigration and to a great extent by prohibition. There is of course gangsterism in other countries but backgrounds differ.
The author catalogued the major Jewish gangsters, their family history, their social setting and their "activities". Being Jewish myself I was glad to discover: a) unlike Italian gangsters the Jewish ones tended to keep their families out of their "business", and b) Jewish economic emancipation after WW II practically eliminated Jews from the "business". An enlightening read though rather dry in the firss half of the book.

Rating:
Summary: great book and a fun reading
Review: this book is a great academic book mixed with fun storytelling.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: This book was great. Rockaway does an outstanding job of presenting the facts about Jewish gangsterism of the early twentieth century. My only point of criticism is that he didn't talk enough about Murder, Inc. as a group, like he did with The Purpe Gang. Otherwise, fabulous book. I loved all the profiles he did on Jewiwsh gangsters, which were very fascinating and enetrtaining.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in Organized Crime, because it sheds a light on the often overlooked aspect of the Mafia's beginnings in the US, which was the Jewish involvement.