Tough Jews- Promised Land 1

Tough Jews and the Promised Land- As you will see I’ve moved on from the Jewish New York Banker storyline about being responsible for the collapse of the world financial system story line- Well in the other work I’m doing this holiday I’m translating from Hebrew- which I cannot speak; And have begun extending Torah adding for the first time in religious history the book of Joshua to Torah to get a seven part Torah that includes –we love to hate him- Brilliant Arabian Prophet- (No Not Muhammed – if he was brilliant I’ve haven’t noticed that despite reading his stuff ) All Time Best Arabian Prophet Balaam- Even Jesus has something to say about him. So that makes Seven books of Torah…. Where was I now I’m getting lost. Yes and a New Generation arrives in the Promised Land and it is vastly different to those who came out of Egypt. And interestingly that is what ‘Tough Jews’ author Rich Cohen wants to tell us too! I will hand over to him for our reading. ‘The cliental of the Hotel Arkansas was mostly Italian and Jewish. Regulars included Louis Lepke, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Joey Adonis, Frank Costello. These men forged a bond beyond religion. Jew or Italian they even looked alike, with dark eyes and dark hair, came from the same ghettos, seemed to want the same things. ‘you know how you can tell a Jewish neighborhood? Ralph Salerno asked me. ‘Look for the Italian restaurants’ At Madden’s resort in the shimmering light of the pool, they were one people. “the Italian Mafioso had a tremendous respect for the Jews’ said John Cusack. ‘they didn’t push them around. Luciano was the first to say, Fight these guys? What do you mean? Get with them work with them’ but it was a world fast disappearing. This was the golden age of Jewish-Italian underworld alliance. People thrown together by poverty and prosperity would soon pull them apart. Back then Jewish and Italian gangsters looked alike the way seeds looked alike. But as the blossomed, with money, with power, differences would emerge. What they wanted their ambitions, fears ,dreams they had for their children, were not the same. Over time these differences would draw the children of Jewish gangsters away from the crime until a Jewish presence in the underworld was a vague memory, as hard to believe as in the youth of your own parents. ‘The Jews were ahead of the Italians: ahead of them in migrating here, ahead of them in being organized criminals, and ahead of them in getting out of it’ Cusak said. When an Italian gangster scored he usually kept the money in the neighborhood. He might make a better apartment, more a few fights, buy a new car, a new girl. You might see him cutting down the street in a razor sharp suit, the sky ion his shoes. But the Italians, at least those below the top echelon, rarely left the corner where they grew up…. The Jewish gangster who made a scroe, in the rackets or in robbery first thing he did was get out. They moved to Brooklyn or Queens to Lower Manhattan, to upper West side (Washington Heights) Central Park West or West end or to the suburbs, Westchester, New Jersey, Long Island and then Miami, Las Vegas, Hollywood, Los Angeles. Who knows? Maybe Jews are just more comfortable on the road. Maybe those years of exile have made them restless. Maybe a homeland means No home. Maybe something deep in then said “Get out before the roof caves in’ For a successful Jew, a big part of life is visiting the old neighborhood, walking shoulder wide with a sense of victory. Jews collect hometowns. “the Italians like the celebrity of that life’ Cusak told me. ‘the Jewish gangsters when they made it got out of the neighbor hood. They didn’t have the bravura of the Italians….The Jews were different they moved uptown, loved on the park, dressed modestly and made sure everyone thought they were businessmen’. For the Jewish gangster crime was not a way out of the system, it was a way in. Jews were not wanted mostly in the white-shoe firms of Wall Street (And we read of Alan Greenspan coming in to that late 40s-Ed) and Madison Ave. Those kids were not acceptable in the league schools (In a book on the history of Harlem it spoke the very elite of Black society sending their children to top English Universities because the doors were closed in USA) In a society so often closed, is it any wonder guns could be a short cut to the American dream? But they did not glory in it. Many Jewish gangsters didn’t even like it. When they wore flashy suits it was not to advertise their wealth, it was because they didn’t know any better. A gangster in suit was a gangster who wanted to be loved. For these men their greatest dream was for their children, was to be successful law abiding American. The Jewish people wanted a future… politicians to the house and nothing to go to jail for. Legitimate power. Doctors lawyers. The gangster knew they could not have this for themselves. They were too rough, too green, not far enough from Europe, the shtetl, the pogroms. They were the generation Moses led out of Egypt, a generation lost in the wilderness, a slave generation that must die away before the Jews could settle in the Promised Land. So instead they got themselves in a position for the dream to come true for their children…. They rarely told their children what they did. I have only found a handful of Jews who say they are related to gangsters. And even those only found out years later.’ P150-152 Tough Jews Rich Cohen Random House 1998. There is a Hebrew word –in Hebrew it is ZKR probably said ‘ZaKar’ and it means Remember as well as equally meaning ‘Male’ I conclude with it because of the nonsense genealogy which is found on the first page of the Christian book called The New Testament. Sure I know the list to be accurate- but the difficulty comes when compared against accurate to the minute of time and location –Star Time record of Babylon and Egypt- the Hebrew list of names looks silly… Why? Well it has lost at least seven maybe more generations. If we never knew and never said what a male ancestor did- well before long his name is forgotten and drops out of the family list. Jewish Gangsters in New York were in danger until this book was written of going the same way as- it is difficult to say- the names of those who lived in Egypt- before finally Moses emerged to bring Israel and Jews out again into Remembrance of the Males of their generations. Tough Male Jews still needed!