A History of Tough Jews

Summary

---

Breaking History — "A History of Tough Jews"

Podcast: Breaking History
Host: The Free Press (Host: Eli Lake)
Date: December 22, 2025
Main Guests: Pamela Nadell (American University), Rich Cohen (Author), Adam (Bergen County Shomrim organizer — pseudonym)

---

Episode Overview

This episode of Breaking History dives into the historical—and newly urgent—dilemma facing Jewish communities: what to do when governments are unable or unwilling to protect Jews from violent or menacing neighbors. Using recent examples of attacks, antisemitic demonstrations, and grassroots Jewish self-defense in the U.S., Australia, and Europe, host Eli Lake connects today’s landscape of antisemitism to its 20th-century American predecessor. The title’s "Tough Jews" refers to both the literal and figurative fighters: Jewish gangsters like Meyer Lansky, who beat back Nazis with their fists in the 1930s, and the modern self-defense volunteers answering new forms of bigotry and threats in 2025. Throughout, Lake and his guests explore how the lessons—and myths—of Jewish resistance resonate today, and ask what responsibility communities have when the system fails them.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

---

1. Contemporary Antisemitism: Global and Local Shocks

• Recent Attacks and Police Inaction: The episode opens with examples such as the Hanukkah shooting at Bondi Beach, Australia, highlighting the 20-minute police inaction and the heroism of a Muslim fruit vendor who intervened.
  • "[The police] did nothing for nearly 20 minutes as the terrorists fired at defenseless Jews like it was target practice." — Eli Lake (03:36)
• Surge of Violence Since October 7, 2023: Eli Lake notes a post-Hamas attack wave of incidents targeting Jews—arson of synagogues in Sydney, violence at Dutch soccer matches, shootings of embassy staff, Molotov cocktails at solidarity marches, and intimidation outside U.S. synagogues.
• Changing Nature of Protest and Harassment: Pro-Palestinian protests have crossed, in some cases, into explicit or implicit antisemitic threats, especially when staged at synagogues with no actual Israeli government business.

---

Notable Quote

"Sometimes the mobs have not been murderous, but menacing nonetheless."
— Eli Lake (05:08)

---

2. Grassroots Jewish Self-Defense: Then & Now

• Formation of Volunteer Security Units (Shomrim): In response to rising intimidation, Bergen County Jews formed the Shomrim—to monitor, patrol, and fill gaps in police coverage, especially outside religious or school hours.
  • "Shomrim fills the gap of when you're not in school, in synagogue, when you're walking around your community, when you're not in services."
    — Adam, Shomrim Organizer (07:07)
  • The effort is framed as an ancient necessity revived by crisis after a "vacation from history," and is compared to Hasidic self-protection units dating back to the 1960s.

---

Notable Quote

"The quotas at elite universities are no more... Most of us have thrived in post-war America. Antisemitism was rare, but this vacation from history is over now."
— Eli Lake (09:07)

---

3. History Rhymes: The Nazi Threat in 1930s America

• Anti-Jewish Organizing in the U.S.: The episode details how Nazis, the Christian Front, and the Silver Legion brought open antisemitism—and violence—to American streets in the 1930s.
• Institutional Antisemitism: Pam Nadell, historian, outlines how Jews faced employment and university quotas, barred neighborhoods, and systemic exclusions even before WWII.
  • "There were all these structural discriminations against Jews in the 1930s...they're demonstrating for Nazi Germany. But what they're doing is Jews are getting caught in the crosshairs, and they're also getting physically beaten up on the streets." — Pamela Nadell (19:11-19:54)
• Mainstream and Militant Jewish Response:
  • Mainstream organizations lobbied, held mass rallies (e.g., "We Will Never Die" at Madison Square Garden), and conducted intelligence gathering, but many in immigrant neighborhoods looked to gangsters for more direct protection.
  • The parallel: in both eras, government and established organizations often failed to guarantee safety.

---

4. Meyer Lansky and the Mythos of "Tough Jews"

• The Lansky Legend: Through archival clips, dramatized quotes, and the account from Lansky himself, the show reconstructs the real (and mythic) story: Lansky and other Jewish gangsters, sometimes with mainstream Jewish leaders’ blessing, violently disrupted Nazi activities in New York and New Jersey.
  • "We wanted to teach them a lesson. We wanted to show them that the Jews would not always sit back and accept insults." — Meyer Lansky (Reenactment, quoting 1971 interview) (35:06)
• Myth vs. History: Both Pam Nadell and author Rich Cohen caution that the Lansky origin story is part folk-legend, in part unverifiable:
  • "You're dealing with kind of folklore, you know...I am certain that the gangsters did beat up the Nazis. The question is, like, who?" — Rich Cohen (38:17)
  • Historians doubt the existence or documentation of a meeting between Lansky and Rabbi Stephen Wise (as Lansky claimed), but agree gangster intervention was real.
• The Ethical and Communal Dilemma: The Jewish press and communal leaders oscillated between lauding the "tough Jews" and condemning them for using violent methods—Lansky claimed even Rabbi Wise eventually asked him to stop.

---

Notable Quotes

"Rabbi Wise is, at least from Lansky's telling, one of the conduits. Because not only was he a giant...but in the 1930s...he had [FDR]'s ear."
— Eli Lake (31:57)

"They referred to us as the Jewish gangsters...This was the first time I was ever publicly mentioned as a gangster. The Jewish press helped create a pressure group...who objected to our direct action."
— Meyer Lansky (Reenactment) (36:25)

---

5. Assimilation, Opportunity, and the Costs of Comfort

• From Street Fighters to Suburban Professionals: Lake argues that postwar America’s prosperity and new freedoms led Jewish gangs to disappear as their children went "legit"—becoming professionals and leaders, not toughs and gangsters.
• Loss of Hard-Won Survival Instinct: There’s a lament for how this absorption into American society—while a victory—has left the Jewish community less streetwise or prepared to defend itself.
  • "Men like Meyer Lansky would go into investment banking or become corporate CEOs. Despite many Jewish communities after October 7th forming the Shomrim...most...are still guarded by contractors." (41:57)

---

Notable Quotes

"What's interesting about the gangsters was they recognized the Nazis as a gang, and that's how they dealt with them...that's so gone now."
— Rich Cohen (42:43)

"[At] Tulane...there was like Jewish kids getting punched and beat up. Where the hell are the ZBTs, man?"
— Rich Cohen (43:15)

---

6. Modern Antisemitism: New Masks, Old Lessons

• Social and Academic Discrimination: Nadell offers a personal account of being shut out of academic dialogue post-October 7; pro-BDS scholars refused to even talk, and some colleagues would denounce antisemitism but deny Israel’s right to exist.
  • "Calling for the destruction of the state of Israel, calling for the destruction of 45% of world Jewry...I could see that as blatant antisemitism, but I understand that they do not." — Pamela Nadell (45:26)
• Host's Recommendation: Lake advocates community assertiveness—not violence, but refusal to be intimidated or erased.
  • "If anti-Zionist fanatics want to send mobs to synagogues...the worshippers should get in their face and let them know that their temple is not so easy a target." (46:51)

---

Notable Quotes

"...We will not be intimidated into silence. If anti-Zionist fanatics want to send mobs to synagogues...the worshippers should get in their face and let them know that their temple is not so easy a target."
— Eli Lake (46:51)

"In other words, stand up to the bullies. That's what Meyer Lansky and the Jewish mobsters did 90 years ago. And in their small way, the American Nazis at least were forced to retreat."
— Eli Lake (47:22)

---

Memorable Moments & Quotes with Timestamps

• "We wanted to show them that the Jews would not always sit back and accept insults."
  — Meyer Lansky (Reenactment), 35:06

• "The place where I've seen it personally was after October 7th...as part of their BDS movement, they won't dialogue with us."
  — Pamela Nadell, 45:00

• "Some of this was also because the freedom afforded Jews in America unleashed a creative genius that benefited the entire country."
  — Eli Lake, 41:38

• "I must say I enjoyed beating up those Nazis."
  — Meyer Lansky (Reenactment), 35:47

---

Important Segment Timestamps

• [02:30] — Start of discussion on police inaction and Hanukkah shooting, Bondi Beach
• [07:00–10:00] — Adam on modern Shomrim, Bergen County
• [18:27–19:56] — Pamela Nadell on deep discrimination in 1930s America
• [23:10–24:10] — Archival reporting on 1938 Yorkville brawl, Nazi event disrupted by Jewish gangster crew
• [31:18–36:20] — Lansky’s own account: the secret support of Wise/Perlman, the myth-building and reality
• [42:43] — Rich Cohen on today's loss of "tough Jews" instinct
• [45:00–46:23] — Pamela Nadell on new forms of academic exclusion and antisemitism
• [46:51] — Eli Lake’s personal assertion: the lesson for today

---

Conclusion

This episode of Breaking History is a timely, provocative look at the cycles of antisemitism and resistance through the lens of "tough Jews"—from Meyer Lansky's fists in the 1930s to community patrols and cultural debates in 2025. Eli Lake and his guests make clear that while the settings and tools may change, the lessons resonate: security cannot be taken for granted, nor can the moral imperative to stand up, forcefully if necessary, to those who attack Jews or wish to erase Jewish presence and rights. The show ends on a call not for vigilantism, but for confident, unbowed communal assertion, inspired by the "tough Jews" of history.

---

Transcript

[Eli Lake]

Every once in a while, someone makes something that feels bigger. Not another Hollywood reboot, but a story built on courage, faith and meaning. The Daily Wire did that with their new seven part series, the Pendragon Rise of the Merlin. Based on a book series by Stephen R. Lawhead. It's a retelling of the classic King Arthur legend. The first official trailer just dropped and you should check it out. In this world, while pagan gods fall silent and empires collapse, one man's vision ignites a civilization's rebirth. Merlin becomes the bridge between myth and history and shapes the destiny of kings. The Pendragon cycle Rise of the Merlin premieres exclusively on Daily Wire January 22, 2026. Go watch the full trailer now at DailyWire.com welcome back, listeners, and Happy Hanukkah. In this episode, we dive into a dilemma for the Jewish people that goes back to the original destruction of the first temple of antiquity. What do the chosen people do when the government cannot or will not protect them from their hateful neighbors? In the 1930s, a few tough Jews took matters into their own hands that were balled into fists. Motto Le Javi Odds Irving Berlin. What happened once happens again when you the kids are Minute Maid. Zero sugar tastes so amazing. You've just got to say great taste and zero sugar and Minute Maid zero sugar sells itself. Great taste. Zero sugar sells itself. It's impossible. I was holding somebody's child because he was screaming.

[Pamela Nadell]

I was saving this child.

[Eli Lake]

This is a time of calm. This is a time where I want.

[Meyer Lansky (reenactment voice)]

To make sure that there is no retribution.

[Eli Lake]

The police are investigating thoroughly. We have acted promptly. We have taken decisive action. Could I just ask for calm in the community? Allow the police to do our job. This was the scene at Bondi Beach, Australia. After a celebration on the first night of Hanukkah, a father and son began opening fire. It was horror. All the more horrible because according to witnesses, the police at the scene did Nothing for nearly 20 minutes as the terrorists fired at defenseless Jews like it was target practice, a brave Muslim fruit vendor intervened heroically to disarm the father, suffering bullet wounds himself. We shouldn't be shocked. Only two days after Hamas launched its murder spree on October 7, 2023, before Israel had even retaliated, this was the scene in Sydney. Sydney has seen a spate of arson attacks on synagogues and other Jewish spaces. In August, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote in a letter to Australia's Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, that he was contributing to the spread of anti Jewish hate that was consuming his country. History will not forgive hesitation and weakness. It will honor action and strength. That's what Israel expects of each other, of your governments in the west and elsewhere. And Australia is by no means the only place where Jews have become targets since October 7th. On American college campuses. Dutch soccer matches tonight.

[Pamela Nadell]

A violent and hate fueled attack on.

[Eli Lake]

Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam.

[Pamela Nadell]

The mayor saying he was at the.

[Eli Lake]

Hands of anti Semitic hit and run squads. From the UK to France, the anti Semitic hordes have been awakened. We've seen the violence at Jewish community centers.

[Pamela Nadell]

Two young staffers of the Israeli embassy, a couple that was planning to get engaged next week, were last were shot last night by a man who after.

[Eli Lake]

He was captured was shouting free Palestine. A Jewish museum in Washington D.C. a Hostage Solidarity march in Boulder, Colorado. He's right there. He's throwing Molotov cockfield. He's right there. After a horrific pogrom motivated by pure evil, a passionate faction of Western public opinion has chimed in to take the side of the Cossacks. Sometimes the mobs have not been murderous, but menacing nonetheless. This was the scene last month in the Upper east side of New York City. Jewish worshippers were on their way to the park east synagogue and ran into this. The marchers claim to be protesting an auction of Palestinian land. In reality, it was an event put on by Nefesh Be Nefesh, an organization that helps North American Jews emigrate to Israel. These swarms have become all too common. They claim to be protests of the war that Hamas launched two years ago. But the mask is off. Here is Hamas propagandist Nurdine Keswani, a leader of Within Our lifetime, explaining in 2024 why Palestinian solidarity demand sends crowds of shouters to show up at a synagogue in Teaneck, New Jersey to protest a non existent land sale. We stand against our tax dollars being used to kill our people and illegal land sale events like this one happening without political leaders intervening to stop it from happening.

[Pamela Nadell]

They are literally selling land on illegal.

[Eli Lake]

Settlements that even the US considers to be illegal. That if they don't want to enforce that, we will enforce that. What is the synagogue supposed to do in a situation like this? Even abhorrent people like Nurdine Keswani and her organization have free speech rights in America. But nonetheless bringing dozens and sometimes more demonstrators to a synagogue. Well, it's sinister. It is a kind of harassment. That mob action spurred the Jews of Bergen county to form a volunteer self defense organization known as Guardians or in Hebrew Shomrim. We spoke with Adam, one of the Bergen County Shomrim organizers.

[Adam (Bergen County Shomrim organizer)]

Shomrim fills the gap of when you're not in school, in synagogue, when you're walking around your community, when you're not in services, through our retail districts, when there's stuff that happens outside of those times, we help fill that gap. And so whether it's at night, when people are walking home, leaving school, going out for dinner in the afternoons, or when there's something happens where there's something that just doesn't look right. And it's not necessarily an immediate police response, but they don't know what to do with it. They'll put it into a WhatsApp group or Facebook groups. We have them communicate with us. We help triage it. We help limit what, like the things that go to police departments that are unnecessary or may not require a response. We'll help triage it. If there is an immediate police emergency, the first answer is we call police dispatch or we have them call 911.

[Eli Lake]

For Adam in Bergen county, this was a response to these targeted actions after October 7th.

[Adam (Bergen County Shomrim organizer)]

So quickly you saw these cropping up across Bergen county right after October 7th. Whether it was the car patrols through our neighborhoods, protest outside of our synagogues, those were becoming weekly events. And the community was like, this is no longer acceptable to us. We have to look out for our own safety. Yes, the police are great. They have limited manpower at nights, they have less than a handful of cars on patrol. We have to do more for our community. And so it was, how can we expand what we do within the synagogues and the volunteers that we do there, or the paid security, how can we complement that? So these that quickly ramped up to people walking in the streets, getting yelled at, having things thrown at them, people driving around, waving flags, screaming at them. And the community just kind of decided, we are no longer going to put up with it. So how can we stand up for ourselves? How can we work with police, extend their eyes and ears and help work with them when there is something that's happening to make sure that our community is always being looked after. And when the police need to respond, they're the ones that will come and do that. But at least we're extending the eyes and ears for them that we can do in real time, monitoring and escalations, and we can hand it off to police as necessary.

[Eli Lake]

The modern Orthodox Jews of Bergen county received an ancient wake up call of sorts. Since the end of World War II, assimilated American Jews have lived in a golden era. The quotas at elite universities are no More. The gentleman's agreement among top law firms and hospitals not to hire Jews has evaporated. Most of us have thrived in post war America. Our Jewish identity was no barrier to achieving what we wished. Antisemitism was rare, but this vacation from history is over now. It never really went away, though. For some of us, for the less assimilated Hasidic Jews that dress in dark suits and hats even in the summer, the Old World antisemitism has been a fact of life. They have had their own shomrim since the mid-1960s. I want to say that for visibly Orthodox Jews, for Hasidic Jews in particular, kind of explosions of antisemitism, or let's say manifestations of anti Semitism on the.

[Meyer Lansky (reenactment voice)]

Street are not really unusual.

[Eli Lake]

This is Dovid Mogolit, senior [e-mail] so the explosion is unusual, but the manifestations of it and kind of this. It's a regular part of your life. I could tell you that I was 10 years old and I was walking down the street and white Irish Catholics attacked us and threw cigarette butts at us. And that was. That was in Boston, Massachusetts and Brighton. So you're not. These aren't things that are surprising to us. Crown Heights, the capital of the Chabad movement, was the site of a horrific riot in 1991. And the police failed to protect the Jews from mobs of black New Yorkers seeking vengeance after a car accident killed a young black boy. That little boy and the little girl. Somebody gotta pay for that. Yeah. You know, we do a lot of talk. We ain't talking no more. No more. Actions, okay?

[Fritz Julius Kuhn (archival audio)]

Black protesters chanting Heil Hitler stormed the Lubavitcher headquarters.

[Eli Lake]

At the time, the former editor of the New York Times, a.m. rosenthal, questioned why so many of New York's assimilated Jews didn't understand that the Hasidim were also American Jews deserving of police protection. Like anyone else, he wrote, I do not understand why some Jews do not understand what is in the hearts of the Hasidim or are silent. They would not tolerate for a moment police or Maral failure against riots in their own neighborhoods. 911 would damn well work. There would be no sympathetic clucks for root cause rationalizations. Are the Hasidim a little too Jewish for them? Maybe they think only a certain kind of Jew gets beaten up. Sweethearts, by you, you are Park Avenue. By your wife, you are Park Avenue. But by an anti Semite, you are a Hasid. In 2025, we understand Rosenthal's warning the Park Avenue Jews are Hasids in the eyes of the anti Semites. America has changed. We don't live in a place where we can count on the government to deter our neighbors who seek to intimidate us, impose purity tests around Israel, and in some cases, kill and injure us because we are Jews. I'm Eli Lake, and you're listening to Breaking History. In this episode, we dive into the last time the cops couldn't credibly protect American Jews from their neighbors. It was the 1930s, a time when Germany entered into darkness and a few German Americans wanted to bring that nightmare here. After the break, the man who pioneered punching Nazis, Meyer Lansky. And why sometimes it takes a thug to stop a thug.

[Jewish Gangster Rapper / Performer]

Hey, Jerry Kraut. Three strikes and you're out. Brass knuckles, blackjack. All Nazis get smacked. Hey, Jerry Kraut. My fist on your mouth. You're Garland.

[Eli Lake]

Hey there, Eli. Here. If you're enjoying Breaking History, you're probably interested in how power really operates in America and who is behind it. If that's you, I want to tell you about the new podcast On Notice, produced by the nonpartisan Newsroom Notice. Each week, journalist Reese Gorman sits down with lawmakers for candid conversations, not just about the latest headlines, but also what makes them tick and what brought them to Washington in the first place. On Notice gives you an insider's view of the people shaping policy in the United States. Reese's approachable style has earned him trust on both sides of the aisle, unlocking unguarded conversations you won't hear in traditional interviews. Tune in to On Notice. That's notus spelled N o T u S. It's available every Monday wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. This episode is brought to you by Corona. When you're on a beach with an ice cold Corona in hand, how can you not feel centered? But did you know you can get that vibe anywhere? That's because whether after work, at barbecues or at a bar with just a squeeze of lime, Corona brings you La Playa mentality. Because while we all want the beach life, paradise doesn't always have palm trees. Corona La Playa awaits. Get [e-mail] Relax responsibly. Corona Extra beer imported by Crown Import, Chicago, IL. Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Americans, American patriots, I'm sure I do not come before you tonight as a complete stranger. You all have heard of me through the Jewish controlled press as a creature with horns, a cloven hoof and a long tail. We are listening to Fritz Julius Kuhn, known as the American Fuhrer delivering a speech on February 20, 1939 at Madison Square Garden. Kuhn was the leader of the American Bund, which had direct ties to the Nazi party in Berlin. It was chilling. A large portrait of George Washington hung on the stage surrounded by banners with swastikas.

[Fritz Julius Kuhn (archival audio)]

Thank you.

[Eli Lake]

And then in the middle of the address, a 26 year old Jewish engineer and shop assistant named Isidore Greenbach rushed the stage trying to tackle Kuhn. You asshole. He was beaten by the brownshirt security detail before the police arrested him. Looking at the rally in 2025, it's eerie. Some of the same lines Kuhn delivered in 1939, the same year the Nazis and the Soviets invaded Poland. Sound familiar? Today we with American ideals demand that our government shall be returned to the American people were bounded. Outside the Garden was a far larger crowd, though of anti Nazi Americans. Kuhn had numbers in parts of Long island, but New York City was not his home turf. The mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, whose mother was Jewish, did not like the Bund. When they asked for police protection for their events and parades, he would make sure to send black and Jewish officers and we should say the American Bund was one of many pro Nazi organizations in America in the late 1930s. There was Father Coghlin and his Christian Front, armed gangs who boycotted Jewish businesses and engaged in street brawls. We are Christian insofar as we believe in Christ's principle of love your neighbor as yourself. And with that principle, I challenge every Jew in this nation to tell me that he does not believe in it. William Dudley Pelly led a group known as the Silver Legion or Silver Shirts that embraced American fascism and blamed Jews for the ruin of the Depression. For the Jewish people who migrated to America between 1880 and 1920, many from Eastern Europe escaping the Cossacks who plundered Jewish shtetls in what was then the Russian Empire. The rise of Nazi sympathy in America felt like a vise grip. Many still had relatives back home. In his great book Tough Jews, Rich Cohen describes what it was like in the late 30s and early 40s for Jewish Americans monitoring things in Europe. Quote, Most Jews still had family in the old country. And the bad news came in letters that grew cloudier and cloudier before the letters stopped coming altogether. End quote. But there was also the institutional antisemitism at that time in America as well.

[Pamela Nadell]

When I think of the 1930s, I think first of all obviously of the Great Depression and how Jews in the United States were deeply impacted by the refusal of so many corporations to employ them and how that they continue to suffer from that during the 1930s.

[Eli Lake]

This is Pamela Nadell, an historian at American University and the author of An American Tradition.

[Pamela Nadell]

So there's the Jews are enduring in the 1930s in the United States, structural discriminations that were put into place much earlier in the 1920s that restricted their abilities to go to colleges and universities, obviously to go to medical school. So that many Jews actually went overseas to medical school. And of course, they went to Germany. That path now becomes closed. They also have so many places where they could not live. So there were all these structural discriminations against Jews in the 1930s. And then there, in a sense, topped off by the very deliberate effort that we now know on the part of the Nazis in Germany to influence the American public to turn, to support them. And we talk about the German American Bund, for example, but there are many other groups as well. And they're demonstrating as they. In terms of their rights to free speech. They have. They're demonstrating for themselves and they're demonstrating for Nazi Germany. But what they're doing is Jews are getting caught in the crosshairs, and they're also getting physically beaten up on the streets.

[Eli Lake]

It was a precarious position. As the clouds over Europe darkened, American Jewish leaders lobbied the Roosevelt administration to allow more European Jewish immigrants into the country. Meanwhile, the Anti Defamation League became a kind of private intelligence organization, sending spies to infiltrate homegrown Nazi organizations and then sharing that information with the Justice Department. There was also an effort to raise awareness of the fate of Europe's Jews with other Americans. In 1943, the screenwriter and novelist Ben Hecht, with a legendary composer Kurt Weil, produced a show at Madison Square Garden called We Will Never Die. Nadell, in her recent history of American antisemitism, writes, quote, 2,500 yards of black cloth covering the hall headliners. The actor Edward G. Robinson, the crooner Frank Sinatra were dwarfed by two giant tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. As a cast of a thousand, including hundreds of rabbis and canners, intoned, remember us. And demanded, avenge us. End quote. Here is a snippet of that production when it traveled to the Hollywood Bowl. Almighty God, who favored the children of Israel with his light, we are here to affirm that this light still shines in us. We are here to say our prayers for the 2 million who have been killed in Europe because they bear the name of your first children. At the same time, there were other Jews that took a more direct approach when it came to the Nazi fifth column inside of America. Here we have to appreciate that 1930s and 1940s America was rougher and more lawless than our country is today. The younger immigrants, crammed together in ethnic neighborhoods in the big cities, could not always count on protection from the police. They turned to local gangsters who simultaneously exploited and protected their communities. And inside the big cities like New York, there were quite literally battles over a few blocks at a time. In that world, eloquent op EDS and star studded productions were not enough. You had to defend yourself. This lesson is an eternal one when it comes to Jewish history. Many of America's Jewish gangsters in the first half of the 20th century were chased from the old world by the gangster states that relegated them to second class citizens. For the Jewish mob, you needed a gang to stop a gang. And if you had to pinpoint an event, it would be Hitler's birthday. April 20, 1938, in the upper east side of Manhattan in the German neighborhood at the Yorkville Casino. This is how the New York Times described the scene in the papers the next day.

[Fritz Julius Kuhn (archival audio)]

Inside the casino was filled by a crowd estimated at 3,500 persons. Gustav J. Elmer, chairman, had called the gathering to order. While gray shirted stormtroopers held posts commanding the aisles. The first speaker, Otto Wegener, proceeded with his address. Mr. Wegener had praised the reformation German seizure of Austria as a, quote, birthday gift by Chancellor Hitler to greater Germany, and was demanding that President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull regard Anschluss as an accomplished fact. Then a man rose in the audience shouting at the speaker, is this an American or a German meeting? Cries in German and English, of which the principal one appeared to be throw em out rose from the audience. Several stormed. Stormtroopers moved toward the man who had interrupted. Then a group of men sitting in neighboring seats and estimated by observers to number as many as a hundred, stood up also and as they rose, donned the blue overseas caps of American legionnaires.

[Eli Lake]

A major brawl ensued. What the Times did not report, but the Jewish press later did, is that the mastermind of this bus stop was Meyer Lansky, the most successful gangster of his generation. Unlike many of his peers in the Italian and Jewish mobs, Lansky managed to cheat both the feds and the assassins and ended up dying of old age. Born Meyer Suchielansky In Belarus in 1902, he emigrated with his family to Manhattan's Lower east side in 1911. Lansky would later tell one of his biographers, Robert Lacey, that the worst time of the year in Belarus as a child was during Easter and Passover. His uncle once crossed a Cossack and his entire arm was severed. I should note that this is the same kind of experience that shaped the young Menachem Begin, who was also from Belarus. The recognition that the powerful Gentiles could do what they wished to the Jews and the state would not protect them led Begin to become a revisionist Zionist and helped build the militia known as the Irgun that fought valiantly in Israel's war of independence. For Lansky, the oppression of the Old World led him to a life of crime. Here is Richard Dreyfus as Meyer Lansky in the 1999 film of the same name, making the case that at the end of the movie to an Israeli interviewer that one always has a choice to confront the bullies. Shout out to Free Press contributor David Mamet, who wrote the screenplay, the Cossacks are coming. You can run, maybe you can get away. You can hide, maybe they won't find you. You can fight, maybe you'll win. You do what you have to do at the time by the best lights that you have. After dropping out of school in the eighth grade, the short, stocky Jewish kid from Belarus proved his mettle on the street. There's a famous story about a dice game that Charles Lucky Luciano tried to muscle into when they were both in their teens. Lansky stood up to him despite being outnumbered, and they soon became close friends. Luciano and Lansky eventually devised a plan to knock off the established New York bosses and took over the city and organized crime nationally, giving the underworld the corporate structure sometimes referred to as the combination the syndicate or the five families. Lansky is probably best remembered for his portrayal in Godfather 2 as Hyman Roth, the underworld financier who tried to kill Michael Corleone after he backed out of his investment in the Cuban casinos that he was running. Roth is played in the movie by the father of method acting, Lee Strasberg.

[Meyer Lansky (reenactment voice)]

Someone put a bullet through his eye. No one knows who gave the order. When I heard it wasn't angry, I knew Mo. I knew he was headstrong, talking loud, saying stupid things. So when he turned up dead, I let it go and I said to myself, this is the business we've chosen.

[Eli Lake]

I didn't ask who gave the order.

[Meyer Lansky (reenactment voice)]

Because it had nothing to do with business.

[Eli Lake]

In the Godfather, Boardwalk Empire and even Bugsy, about his longtime friend and ally Ben Siegel, Lansky is often seen as a supporting actor in the drama of the American Mafia. But Lansky is a founding father. It was his idea to corporatize the Mafia to create a kind of Supreme Court that settled disputes between rival crime families. And it was also Lansky that dreamed up the initial schemes to invest in legal casinos, first in Cuba and then Las Vegas. One of Lansky's more positive contributions to the American experience is that he helped organize a national street war against American Nazi organizations in the 1930s. Now, before we go any further, we have to explain that Mafia history presents a dilemma for all of us seeking the truth. There are not a lot of records other than the court documents and FBI files. So for something like this, you have to ask yourself, can I trust the word of a career criminal? Because the main source for the next part of this story is Lansky himself. It's from interviews that he gave to the Israeli journalist ori Dahn in 1971 as he was lobbying the Israeli government to give him citizenship. He lost that case and was eventually sent back to America where he faced and ultimately beat in court charges from the US Government for tax evasion. So with that in mind, we're going to recreate Lansky's telling of this tale through his interview in 1971.

[Meyer Lansky (reenactment voice)]

I was a Jew and I felt for those Jews in Europe who were suffering. They were my brothers. I've never gotten used to the idea of being called a criminal. And I'd like to tell you how and when this label was first put on me. Maybe it will surprise you, but it started in the 1930s, after Hitler took power in Germany. Nazi sympathizers in the United States, some of them Americans of German origin and some not, set up what they called the German American Bundle or union. This was a pro Nazi organization that spread Nazi style anti Semitic slogans. They strutted around the place, made threats like throwing all Jews into concentration camps. I was very sensitive about anti Semitism. But during those years, many other people also became worried. Important WASPs, as we would call them now, openly made anti Semitic statements and some magazines and papers backed them. This worried Jewish leaders, including the most respected one of all, Rabbi Stephen Wise. He sent me a message asking me to do something about this dangerous trend. Another Jewish leader who was worried was a respected New York judge, an important member of the Republican Party. We knew each other and one day in 1935, he came to see me and said, nazism is flourishing in the United States. The Bund members are not ashamed to have their meetings in the most public places. We Jews should be more militant, Meyer. We want to take action against These Nazi sympathizers. We'll put money and legal assistance at your disposal, whatever you need. Can you organize the militant par for us?

[Eli Lake]

I want to stop it here. There is no corresponding evidence from either Rabbi Stephen Wise or the judge who was Nathan Perlman, a former Republican congressman, to support Lansky's account of this meeting or that the meeting even happened. But it's telling that Rabbi Wise is, at least from Lansky's telling, one of the conduits. Because not only was he a giant of American Reform Judaism, but in the 1930s, perhaps more than any other American Jewish leader, he had President Roosevelt's ear. Now, Wise is a bit of a polarizing figure because of this. On the one hand, he issued vocal warnings about the Third Reich in the 1930s. And if Lansky's account is true, then he also set in motion a wave of physical confrontations between Jewish gangsters and American Nazis, which I would count as a positive contribution to recent history. On the other hand, his proximity to Roosevelt also made him protective of that president, even as Roosevelt was continuing a policy that kept Jews out of America when Hitler was trying to exterminate them. The historian Raphael Madoff, in his book the Jews Should Keep Quiet Skewer, is Wise for being played by Roosevelt. And here's what he writes. Quote. Nowhere was Roosevelt's passion for manipulation on greater display than in the way he managed his relationship with Rabbi Wise. Calling Wise by his first name, extending a dinner invitation to Wise's daughter, and sending along affectionate regards were the kinds of gestures that touched Wise and made him feel important. A meeting in the Oval Office, however rare, made Wise feel as if he had the ear of the President. Such gestures help ensure that Wise would keep his negative feelings about Roosevelt's refugee policy to himself. That, in turn, would help sustain the traditionally high levels of support for FDR among American Jews. Now back to Lansky.

[Meyer Lansky (reenactment voice)]

I was very flattered and of course, agreed to help. I'll fight the Nazis with my own resources. I said, I don't need your cash. But I will ask you one thing. That after we go into action, you try to make sure the Jewish press doesn't criticize me. The judge promised to try to do that. And for the next two years, my friends and I saw some good action against the Brown Shirts around New York. I got my buddies like Bugsy Siegel before he went to California, and some other young guys. We taught them how to use their fists and to handle themselves in fights. And we didn't behave like gents. A lot of Young men who had to connection with me came to see me quietly, without publicity. Young guys in all kinds of occupations, and many not so young. The judge and his friends supplied the names of the big activists among the Nazi sympathizers. For instance, there was the famous affair in Yorkville, the center of the German colony in Manhattan. I was given the address where the Nazis were preparing a meeting. And Walter Winchell telephoned me about it and encouraged me to take action. Well, we got there on that evening and found several hundred people dressed in their brown shirts. The stage was decorated with a swastika and pictures of Hitler. The speakers started ranting. There was only about 15 of us, but we went into action. We attacked them in the hall and threw them out of the windows. There were fist fights all over the place. Most of the Nazis panicked and ran out. We chased them and beat them up. And some of them were out of action for months. Yes, it was violence. We wanted to teach them a lesson. We wanted to show them that the Jews would not always sit back and accept insults. I know that the judge and Rabbi Wise were pleased with us.

[Eli Lake]

Again, this is Lansky's account. He says that Winchell gave him the wrong address, but they found that meeting anyway. Okay, back to Meyer Lansky.

[Meyer Lansky (reenactment voice)]

We operated against the Brownshirts in a whole lot of places. In New York, New Jersey and even farther away. We knew how to handle him, me and my friends. The Italians, I knew, offered to help, but as a matter of pride, I wouldn't accept. I neglected my business many times to travel around and organize our counter attacks. I must say I enjoyed beating up those Nazis. There were times when we treated a BUN leader or other big anti Semite in a very special way. But the main point was just to teach them that Jews couldn't be kicked around.

[Eli Lake]

And here's my favorite part. Remember, the one thing that Lansky asks of Perlman and Wise is that they help keep his name out of the Yiddish newspapers, which his wife read. And on this one request, the two big machers failed.

[Meyer Lansky (reenactment voice)]

But the Jewish leaders wouldn't stop my mistreatment in the press. Then would you believe the Jewish press was the first to condemn us when they reported our anti bund activities. They referred to us as the Jewish gangsters. I remember this was the way the Morgan Journal, the big Yiddish newspaper at the time, came out against us. In fact, the Jewish papers were the first to call us the mob of Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. This was the first time I was ever publicly mentioned as a gangster. The Jewish press helped create a pressure group of influential political people in the Jewish community who objected to our direct action program. One day we got a message from Rabbi Wise to stop our activity. People were saying it was morally wrong to use the same violence the Nazis were using. I tried to argue, but if leaders like Rabbi Wise decided I was wrong, I had to respect their wishes.

[Eli Lake]

So there you have it, straight from the horse's mouth. I should say that some of that I think, is largely true. But I wanted to ask others who have studied this. So here is what Pam Nadell told us about that meeting with Perelman Lansky and Rabbi Steven Wise. She said it was not much of a focus for historians of this period.

[Pamela Nadell]

It's not something that historians have focused on. And that's why I just did not come across that when I was doing research. Does it surprise me? Not so much. I mean, if you sort of think about what's also going on in British Mandate Palestine in these years, when's the Haganah founded? Right. When are Jews standing up? It doesn't surprise me. But that you could get it on record that he supported it. I don't know. That's what surprises me. I don't know. You're gonna find, like, somewhere where it's written.

[Eli Lake]

Rich Cohen also said it was unlikely that anyone would find a record of the meeting other than what Lansky said many years later.

[Rich Cohen]

Well, you're dealing with kind of folklore, you know, so. And you're dealing with kind of a game of telephone where the story gets repeated. And maybe somebody in Weiss's circle said something and it got turned into. That's why it's so hard to write about this stuff, because it's. It's, you know, it's myth that serves a function for people like my father growing up after, you know, World War II, that there's this thing that gives you some strength, like a role model, in a way. Even though he was a criminal, he also fought. So I don't know, and I don't think there's a way to know. And I think intentionally they hit all their tracks and everything else. And I am certain that the gangsters did beat up the Nazis. The question is, like, who? Actually, I always heard it was Stephen, Stephen Watts.

[Eli Lake]

After the break, why there are no Meyer Lance Skis today in the Jewish Diaspora. That was it.

[Meyer Lansky (reenactment voice)]

No more letters from chewing officers.

[Eli Lake]

No more letters from school.

[Meyer Lansky (reenactment voice)]

In fact, no more letters from anybody.

[Eli Lake]

Finally, after a couple of weeks, my mother had to go to the post office and complain.

[Meyer Lansky (reenactment voice)]

How could I go back to school after that and pledge allegiance to the flag and sit through good government bullshit.

[Eli Lake]

That, of course, is from the opening of Martin Scorsese's magnum opus, Goodfellas. I play it because that snippet of narration captures the central conceit of the criminal lifestyle. The game is rigged. After a young Henry Hill sees his Mafia friend stuff a mailman's head in a pizza oven for the infraction of delivering truant notices to his home, he correctly asks how he was supposed to take, quote, all that good government bullshit seriously. Depending on when you ask that question. It's fair, because for Jews, Italians, Irish Catholics, blacks and many other minorities in the first half of the 20th century, the game was, in a sense, rigged. As I mentioned earlier, there were quotas for Jews at the best universities. Jews wouldn't be hired by the best law firms and hospitals. Leases in this era prevented homeowners from selling their houses to blacks or Jews in the best neighborhoods. Nonetheless, the system also worked. After World War II, barriers for Jews and other groups in America began to be lifted. Some of this was because of the Civil Rights movement and landmark civil rights legislation in 1964 and 1965. And some of it was also because we fought an anti Semitic empire in World War II. And for the generations that fought that war, hating Jews was something associated with our mortal enemies. Some of this was also because the freedom afforded Jews in America unleashed a creative genius that benefited the entire country. Eventually, the Jewish mob died out because most of the mobsters themselves encouraged their children to study hard and go to school, to go legitimate. We should say that Italian and Irish mobsters, many of them at least, did the same thing. Lansky, though, is a case in point. He was so proud that his son Paul graduated from West Point. America really was a land of opportunity in the 20th century. If you understood that the opportunity would pay off in the next generation. But in this process of assimilation, as the descendants of Eastern European Jewry found their place in America, something was lost. Jewish kids no longer grew up having to learn how to survive a street fight. Men like Meyer Lansky would go into investment banking or become corporate CEOs. Despite many Jewish communities after October 7th forming the Shom Rim, these volunteer security organizations, most of the synagogues and Jewish community centers today are still guarded by contractors.

[Rich Cohen]

What's interesting about the gangsters was they recognized the Nazis as a gang, and that's how they dealt with them. And they knew how you deal with a gang, which is you go stand up to them and you're tougher than them and you beat them up and they. And they back off and some of that's so gone now, you know. So I remember I went to Tulane and there was that thing like a riot or whatever. I forgot the hell that happened on Tulane middle of Tulanes campus. And there was like Jewish kids getting punched and beat up.

[Eli Lake]

This is Rich Cohen again.

[Rich Cohen]

And I just looked at it as a former two lane student and thought where the hell are the zbts, man? I mean even when I was there in College in the 80s, the ZBTs would have gone out there and they would be fighting and they're just not there. And there was still some. I mean that's the whole reason you're in. You are a zebe, which is the Jewish fraternity. Anyway, I think that they recognized the Nazis as gangsters and they knew how to deal with a gangster and they went and they beat him up.

[Eli Lake]

Do we know how to deal with the heirs of the American Bund in the Jewish diaspora in 2025? It's hard to say. Ashkenazi Americans no longer live in tenements and ghettos where street gangs act as de facto police. In Bondi beach, it took the courage of ordinary people to disarm one of the shooters before police ultimately stopped the father and son mass killers. The police nonetheless failed to prevent that catastrophe. If that becomes a pattern, men like Meyer Lansky will be back in business. We take the state's monopoly of violence for granted and that monopoly is challenged. People turn to gangsters to keep the peace. We are not living in 1938 when the police were corrupt. Organizations like the Anti Defamation League today advise social media companies and the FBI on how to combat antisemitism. But this approach only goes so far. There are no gentlemen's agreements in 2025. But in industries that were once welcoming to Jews like Hollywood, book publishing and academia, new unspoken agreements over Israel have replaced the country club antisemitism of old.

[Pamela Nadell]

The place where I've seen it personally was that after October 7th, many of my Jewish studies colleagues, we wanted to model for our campus dialogues with our colleagues who have different political points of view. And as part of their BDS movement, they won't dialogue with us.

[Eli Lake]

This is Pamela Nadell again.

[Pamela Nadell]

Even when my provost asked them if they could not find people, to have a dialogue with us took about six, eight months. I finally was in a meeting with multiple people, including one person who I disagree with politically. And I heard what I've heard in other settings. They denounce anti Semitism. And in the very next breath they say that Israel has no right to exist. In my definition, calling for the destruction of the state of Israel, calling for the destruction of 45% of world Jewry. I could see that as blatant anti Semitism, but I understand that they do not.

[Eli Lake]

So you tried to have discussion about it and they refused.

[Pamela Nadell]

We just get shut down. They don't. We completely get shut down. Don't answer emails. They're not, let's say that they are not collegial.

[Eli Lake]

That's a very different kind of antisemitism than what Meyer Lansky faced in his day. But there are some lessons that we should remember. I respectfully disagree with Dr. Nadell. I don't think a dialogue with professors who insist that the only Jewish state should not exist is fruitful. Instead, make it clear that we will not be intimidated into silence. If anti Zionist fanatics want to send mobs to synagogues to protest non existent land sales, the worshippers should get in their face and let them know that their temple is not so easy a target. And if, God forbid, another deranged terrorist wants to start mass shooting Jews at a Hanukkah celebration or a Jewish museum, my hope is that someone at the event is also packing heat. In other words, stand up to the bullies. That's what Meyer Lansky and the Jewish mobsters did 90 years ago. And in their small way, the American Nazis at least were forced to retreat.

[Jewish Gangster Rapper / Performer]

Hey, Jerry Kraut. Three strikes and you're out. Brass knuckles, blackjack. All Nazis get smacked. Hey, Jerry Kraut. Black fist on your mouth. New York and girl in don't come here again. Crystal knot this time we brought the whole gang. Get out of New York or hammers go bang. Hey, Cherry head crowd you get knocked out. The Upper east side is down with the stripe. Hey Jerry. And crowd, it looks like a rouse. Oh, you mess with the J for lose. Crystal not this time. We brought the whole gang. Don't leave New York Then hammers go bankrupt. Over there in Germany the Fuhrer's on the road Europe being surgery removing Europe's soul Nazis marching street parades on New York avenues Thinking they intimidate a hundred righteous Jews Big again.

[Pamela Nadell]

Stop.

[Jewish Gangster Rapper / Performer]

Oh man, we're breaking bones tonight. If we see a swastika, there's gonna be a fight. Crystal knot this time we brought the whole guy. New York then hammers go bang.

[Adam (Bergen County Shomrim organizer)]

Yeah.

[Jewish Gangster Rapper / Performer]

Crystal not this time. We brought the whole gang. If you don't need me, I that hammers go play. Hey, Jerry. Hey, crowd. You're getting knocked out.

[Eli Lake]

Sam.