There's a part of this hundred-year history of organized crime and intelligence operations.

That is, well, either embraced by historians, categorically misunderstood by empass, or

flat-out weaponized by the nastiest among us. Here it is. The men who organized crime were Jewish

and Italian immigrants who collaborated regardless of nation of origin, tribe, or creed because of their

shared worship of money and power. I honestly cannot measure how important to each of them their

individual heritage was, since what their business meant to them individually triumfed overall.

Plus, gangsters are epic liars. So coming to understand them falls under that old saying of

what they do, not what they say. They hung together, crime together, fought together, built an

empire together day by day, and then retreated into their own corners of family and tradition

in the rare moments of rest. They were, nonetheless, Jews and Roman Catholics,

of Russian or Eastern European origin or Italian. They knew this about one another. They acknowledged

it regularly about one another. They lived by both violence and racial slang, yet worked together

without the malice of racism. They lived their stereotypes, yet transcended them when it came to

loyalty and the almighty dollar. They brought their own into the enterprise, reaching into their

individual neighborhood gangs that shared the same creed, tribe, and nation of origin, then

worked across those would-be barriers seamlessly, while always understanding their differences.

Mayerlansky had his core crew of fellow Jews, like Bugsy Seagull, Abner Longy's Wilman,

and Lewis Leppke Bookalter. Lucky Luciano had his Italians, Frank Costello, Vito Genevise,

Joe Adonis, and Albert Anastasia. And for all of these men, at one point or another,

their heritage was a form of currency. It was a part of their identity to be leveraged,

where that made a difference to the accumulation and protection of wealth and power. But

it simply cannot be assumed that it mattered to any of them for any reason other than that.

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