{"id":93097,"date":"2018-01-22T17:27:24","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T21:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=93097"},"modified":"2018-01-22T18:15:24","modified_gmt":"2018-01-22T22:15:24","slug":"supermob-the-most-powerful-underworld-organization-in-u-s-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=93097","title":{"rendered":"SUPERMOB<\/b>: The Most Powerful Underworld Organization in U.S. History"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mafia Jews: Inside a Genuine Cabal<\/strong><\/h1>\n

by Lisa Keys<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America\u2019s Hidden Power Brokers<\/h2>\n

By Gus Russo
\nBloomsbury USA, 592 pages<\/em><\/p>\n

Published: September 5, 2006<\/p>\n

\n

The Jewish people are instructed to be a \u201clight unto the nations\u201d \u2014 and what society could use more illumination than the underworld?\u00a0 So goes the story of mob lawyer Sidney Korshak, whose partnerships with Chicago gangsters led him to be named the most powerful lawyer in the world by the FBI.\u00a0 As part of his, er, \u201ccovenant,\u201d he steered the mob toward a path of respectability, serving as its go-between with the white-collar world.<\/p>\n

Sidney who, you ask? Those with a passing pop-culture familiarity with the Mafia know that Chicago was famous for its Italian Mafiosos, like Al Capone and Tony Accardo.\u00a0 New York City, of course, had its share of \u201ctough Jews,\u201d including Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel.\u00a0 But for much of the past century, the real center of mob power was a Chicago-born Jewish lawyer \u2014 or so says investigative reporter Gus Russo in his new book, \u201cSupermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America\u2019s Hidden Power Brokers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Supermob \u2014 the term was coined by late Senate investigator Walter Sheridan \u2014 was, according to Russo, a group of mostly Jewish men who made a fortune by collaborating with Chicago\u2019s underworld.\u00a0 Generally, these men took mob money and funneled it into such respectable outlets as real estate and the burgeoning film industry.<\/p>\n

The fact that these men were Jewish is crucial to Russo\u2019s story.\u00a0 His telling of the Supermob tale begins in the Pale of Settlement and quickly advances to the Lawndale section of Chicago, a place so crowded with Jews that it was known as \u201cKosher Calcutta.\u201d There, living amid crowded streets and a corrupt civic landscape, is a band of young, first-generation immigrant Jewish kids who are determined to make it big in American life \u2014 at any moral price.\u00a0 These Jewish gangsters would never make the headlines; instead, they\u2019d serve as the behind-the-scenes masterminds of the mob.<\/p>\n

And according to Russo, this is the role that Jews traditionally played.\u00a0 \u201cThroughout history,\u201d he writes, \u201cthe Jews were never the public leaders; they were always the kingmakers and power brokers.\u00a0 They knew from experience that a Jew would not get a top spot, however low the level, because of the existing anti-Semitism, even in America.\u00a0 They were always aware that their wealth and position in society could be noticed and another pogrom would ensue.\u00a0 Thus they worked surreptitiously, choosing to focus on the substrata of a business or an event.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russo takes great pains to promote Korshak\u2019s Jewish identity; the man attended the Herzl Grammar School, he lent financial support to Israel and, as a retiree in Beverly Hills, he collected Marc Chagall paintings.\u00a0 But early on, Korshak\u2019s decidedly, well, goyish qualities are what set apart the rising star.\u00a0 Frequently referring to Korshak as \u201cfair-haired,\u201d Russo writes: \u201cThe adjectives most often used to describe the young barrister \u2014 suave, slim, tall and imperious \u2014 were the same attributes that made him the perfect corporate liaison for the most powerful underworld organization in the history of the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Korshak, too, represented a sort of duality.\u00a0 Though he prospered enormously from his mob ties \u2014 and used to brag about his early Capone associations \u2014 it seems he was conflicted, too.\u00a0 \u00a0More than once, according to Russo, Korshak indicated that he wanted out \u2014 and, in an effort to put a tikkun olam wash over the criminal things he\u2019d done, he donated large sums of money to charity.<\/p>\n

Still, the Supermob\u2019s reach extended far beyond the shtetl; by the time Korshak headed to Los Angeles in the 1950s, his list of associates read like a \u201cWho\u2019s Who\u201d of American politics and business in the 20th century.\u00a0 Among Korshak\u2019s cohorts were Jules Stein, founder of Universal Pictures and the Music Corporation of America, Conrad Hilton, Howard Hughes, Ronald Reagan and former California governor Jerry Brown.<\/p>\n

Korshak lived the kind of riveting life that\u2019s ripe for fiction \u2014 and indeed, he allegedly inspired the Tom Hagen character, played by Robert Duvall, in \u201cThe Godfather.\u201d (Incidentally, Korshak was instrumental in securing Al Pacino for the film\u2019s title role, as well as in staving off interference from the Mafia and the Italian-American Civil Rights League.)\u00a0 And yet, Russo forgoes narrative in favor of a heavily sourced, academic approach. The result is a brilliantly researched book that too often reads like a term paper.\u00a0 There are some interesting parts: The chapter on the Chicago Outfit\u2019s involvement in the creation of Las Vegas \u2014 it actually predates that of the New York gangsters \u2014 is particularly compelling, while the chapter on the Supermob\u2019s seizing of Japanese Americans\u2019 property during World War II illuminates.<\/p>\n

___
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