A Jewish Mob Tour
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Max “Kid Twist” Zwerbach, “Big” Jack Zelig, Monk Eastman. These aren’t the Jewish historical figures you study in Hebrew school.
All three were notorious gangsters from the early-20th-century ramshackle days of the Lower East Side. And now they’re being commemorated in the “Jewish Mob Walking Tour,” organized by the Museum of the American Gangster in New York.
Currently in previews, the tour — which gives the Forward a shout out for its influential role in the Jewish community — takes participants to a slew of sordid locales, including shootout and assassination sites. It’s not all blood and bullets, though. Curated with the help of crime authors like Patrick Downey, author of “Gangster City,” the tour hopes to contextualize the Jewish mob within the broader Jewish immigrant experience — not all enterprise was good enterprise.
Did you know that only 2% of Forward readers donate to support our nonprofit newsroom? That 2% make it possible for millions to read the Forward without a paywall or subscription — removing any barriers to the full and fair Jewish story.
But while the Forward is free to read, it isn’t free to produce. Big stories — like deep dives into the antisemitism data, political scoops or reporting trips to college campuses — take months of research and fact-checking. All while we keep you informed of what you need to know each day.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Forward Publisher & CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
