Full name: Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams

Author: Rich Cohen Year: 1998 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: History, Non Fiction, True crime, Biographies, Mystery, Crime Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780375705472 0375705473

In an L.A. delicatessen, a group of Brooklyn natives gets together to discuss basketball, boxing, the weather back east, and the Jewish gangsters of yesteryear. Meyer Lansky. Bugsy Siegel. Louis Lepke, the self-effacing mastermind of Murder, Inc. Red Levine, the Orthodox hit man who refused to kill on the Sabbath. Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, who looked like a mama's boy but once buried a rival alive. These are just some of the vibrant, vicious characters Rich Cohen's father reminisced about and the author evokes so pungently in Tough Jews. Tracing a generation of Jewish gangsters from the candy stores of Brownsville to the clubhouses of the Lower East Side--and, occasionally, to suites at the Waldorf--Cohen creates a densely anecdotal and gruesomely funny history of muscle, moxie, and money. Filled with fixers and schlammers, the squeal of tires and the rattle of gunfire, his book shatters stereotypes as deftly as its subjects once shattered kneecaps. Similar books: "Our Crowd" by Stephen Birmingham Hellhound on His Trail by Hampton Sides Doctor Dealer by Mark Bowden Hell's Princess by Harold Schechter American Kingpin by Nick Bilton Furious Hours by Casey Cep The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett Ghosts of Mississippi by Maryanne Vollers Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger Bloodsworth by Tim Junkin The Butcher by Philip Carlo Boss of Bosses by Joseph F. O'Brien The Valachi Papers by Peter Maas Oswald's Tale by Norman Mailer Capone by Laurence Bergreen Sacco and Vanzetti by Bruce Watson Al Capone by Deirdre Bair Room 1219 by Greg Merritt The Profession of Violence by John Pearson Eliot Ness by Douglas Perry