We Jews are fighters. And I don't just mean with each other. In the 1930's, the German American Bund was growing in numbers. The Bund supported Hitler - they were Nazis here in America. A Jewish New York Judge, Nathan Perlman, was not happy about the Bund's growing influence in New York. He contacted Meyer Lansky, a well known Jewish mobster, to see if he might be able to help out. (This was discussed in a recent article in the New York Post, with much of the information likely coming from a book by Michael Benson called "Gangsters vs Nazis, How Jewish Mobsters Battled Nazis In Wartime America.")
As the story goes, Judge Perlman asked Lansky: "You got some boys who might want to punch a Nazi?" Lansky's reply: "I do, Judge. Respectfully, you understand we can do better than punch. I know just the crew - in Brownsville. The boys in the press call them Murder, Inc." (Murder, Inc. was started by two Jewish mobsters - Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, with Italian mobsters later joining in. While Lucky Luciano organized the five crime families in New York, Lansky is said to have been a key figure in aligning them with Jewish and Irish mobsters.)
Back to the story. Judge Perlman made it clear that he did not want anyone killed, just roughed up. At one of the Bund rallies, 3000 of these Nazis were in attendance. Lansky intended to break it up. He rounded up 14 other Jewish mobsters. His friend, Lucky Luciano, is said to have offered a helping hand with Italian mobsters. Lansky: "It's a job for the Jews." Now, you might think that 15 vs 3000 was not a fair fight. It wasn't. These were 15 mobsters, beating and killing on a regular (daily?) basis. The Nazis (who should rot in hell) did not have a chance.
No surprise that at subsequent Bund rallies, far fewer Nazis showed up. Judge Perlman saw the success, and extended his efforts to other cities - Chicago and Los Angeles, among others. At one of these Bund rallies in Buffalo, one of the Jewish mobsters beat one of the Nazis bloody, and then said: "Next time we ain't gonna be so nice."
(A personal note is needed here. Having grown up in NJ, and reading about the Mob in the newspaper on a regular basis, and seeing the evil that they did, I hated them. I started to hate all bad guys. I love the cop shows on TV, because the good guys always get the bad guys. So, my point is not to in any way idolize these mobsters. My point is to show that Jews are fighters. And, I should add, as between the Nazis and the Mob, I'll take the Mob every day.)
Looking back at the World War II era, not everyone knows the story of the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto. The Germans had occupied Poland, and were rounding up the Jews before sending them off to concentration/extermination camps. But the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto decided to fight back. It was a total mismatch, as the Jews were poorly armed, mostly with handguns only. They understood that they would not likely survive in a fight against the German SS troops. But one of the fighters wrote: "We will continue to fight and to resist as long as we hold weapons in our hands."
It is estimated that as many as 20,000 Jews may have been killed in what came to be known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. With another 36,000 shipped off to the camps. But, as with many Jews throughout our history, they refused to go down without a fight.
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