But He Was Good to His Mother

But He Was Good to His Mother by Robert A. Rockaway offers a fascinating look at a little-known chapter of American Jewish history: the Jewish gangsters who became major figures in organized crime during the early twentieth century.

Drawing on FBI files, newspapers, books, and interviews with former mobsters and people who knew them, Rockaway explores figures such as Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Dutch Schultz, Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, and members of Detroit’s notorious Purple Gang.

Rather than focusing solely on their crimes, Rockaway reveals the personalities behind the headlines, including their families, Jewish identities, communities, loyalties, and contradictions. Lively, often humorous, but firmly grounded in historical research, the book presents an unconventional portrait of men who were ruthless criminals yet also part of the complex Jewish immigrant experience in America.

Also available in Hebrew.

Robert Rackaway was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan in 1970. He taught at the University of Texas before coming to live in Israel in 1971. Since then, he has been a member of the Department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University. He is the author of The Jews of Detroit: From The Beginning, 1762-1914 (1986); Immigrants, Workers and Gangsters: Chapters in American Jewish History (Hebrew, 1990); and Words of The Uprooted: Jewish Immigrants in Early 20th Century America (1998)