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Gangsters: The Immigrant's Hero featurette


Italians, Irish and Jews...

If these three groups produced most of the gangsters in the 30's, why is it that the Itanlians and the Jews got along relatively well, while the Irish hated the both of them?

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[deleted]

The Irish and the Italians were the ones most likely to have trouble with each other, mostly. Jewish gangsters worked less tribally, aligned with either Italian-centric or Irish-centric gangs and occasionally rising to great prominence with both groups.

For example, Hymie Weiss was Jewish, and was the guy who replaced Dion O'Banion atop Chicago's main Irish mob after Capone had O'Banion iced in the big bootlegging war of the 1920s. So the Irish not only made room for Jewish gangsters, they even took orders from them occasionally.

Conversely, other Jewish guys like Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel enjoyed strong, mutually beneficial relationships with Italian Mafia bosses like Lucky Luciano for decades. It wasn't about ethnic differences for most gangsters, just money.

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