Jewish-American organized crime

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Jewish-American organized crime initially emerged within the American Jewish community during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In media and popular culture, it has variously been referred to as the Jewish Mob, the Jewish Mafia, the Kosher Mob, the Kosher Mafia, the Yiddish Connection, and Kosher Nostra or Undzer Shtik (Yiddish: אונדזער שטיק). The last two of these terms are direct references to the Italian Cosa Nostra; the former is a play on the word for kosher, referring to Jewish dietary laws, while the latter is a calque of the Italian phrase 'cosa nostra' (Italian for "our thing") into Yiddish, which was at the time the predominant language of the Jewish diaspora in the United States. In the late 19th century and early 20th century in New York City, Monk Eastman operated a powerful Jewish gang known as the Eastman Gang that competed with Italian and Irish gangs, notably Paul Kelly's Five Points Gang, for control of New York City's underworld. Another notorious gang, known as...

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