JCC Show Explores Lives Of Jewish Gangsters

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

Through Sunday you can catch "Real Machers," an exhibit at the DC Jewish Community Center about the colorful, brutal and usually short lives of Jewish gangsters, many of whom got their start breaking heads for - and against - unions in the sweatshops and tenements of New York City's Lower East Side 100 years ago. While big-time crime bosses like Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel and Dutch Schultz became household names, lesser machers - Yiddish for a someone with connections, a big shot - prove just as fascinating. Take Benjamin "Dopey Benny" Fein, the son of a tailor who took over Jack Zelig's gang after Big Jack wound up on the wrong end of a hail of bullets. Fein specialized in labor racketeering, with fees for the use of his "shlammers" depending on the level of physical persuasion needed to encourage union support or opposition. Fein was a fair gangster, however, employing women as well as men - many of the targeted workers were female garment workers, after all - and paying equal wages for equal work. Fein was arrested in 1914 when he threatened to kill the business agent for the butcher's union, who'd refused to pay Fein to "protect" striking butchers, probably from attacks by Fein's own men. There are plenty more like Fein, including Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, who controlled the trucking, bakery and garment industries in New York, collecting protection money from both bosses and unions. The show, featuring portraits by Pat Hamou, runs through Sunday, May 17 at the DC Jewish Community Center on 16th Street; admission is free. - Chris Garlock, with thanks to Aviva Kempner