The Yiddish Gangster's Daughter

The Yiddish Gangster's Daughter PDF Author: Lipinsky Cochran Joan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780999828007
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Finalist for the Claymore and Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards Since separating from her philandering husband, Boca Raton writer Becks Ruchinsky has struggled to build a closer relationship with her quirky and contentious father, Tootsie, who lives in a retirement home. One evening, as she and her father are relaxing on the home's front porch, an elderly woman accuses Tootsie of having murdered her husband fifty years earlier. Tootsie admits to ratting on the man, who'd cheated their Jewish syndicate boss out of thousands of dollars, but denies killing the widow's husband. He also admits to having friends in the Jewish mafia and shares stories about his experiences. But the more time she spends with her father, the more convinced Becks becomes that Tootsie is lying about his involvement. Determined to discover the truth about her dad's past, she sets out on a journey to undercover his darkest secrets. She learns he worked for the Jewish mafia -running numbers for the Cuban lottery, beating up Nazi sympathizers, and smuggling arms to Israeli independence fighters. When she learns that he murdered his best friend and, possibly, his own brother, she must decide if she can accept his criminal past - or cut him out of her life. The Yiddish Gangster's Daughter also explores the impact our parents' relationships have on our own. Throughout the book, Becks challenges her father on his infidelity toward her mother and becomes frustrated by his refusal to acknowledge that what he did was hurtful to his entire family. She's upset when Tootsie minimizes her husband's affair and encourages her to take him back. Ultimately, Becks realizes that she cannot forgive her husband for cheating until she comes to terms with her father's infidelities...and her mother's willingness to put up with them. A gripping and thought-provoking murder mystery, this award-winning novel explores the colorful and precarious world of the 1940s and 1950s Jewish mafia . . . and the limits of familial love. Praise for The Yiddish Gangster's Daughter . . . an engaging, multi-layered family saga cum mystery where a fifty-something woman and mother of two grown sons suddenly discovers that the comfortable, predictable life she has been living is nothing but a sham. Her attempts to make sense of her impossible new reality are both touching and gripping, making for a truly unique literary experience. Les Standiford, The Last Train to Paradise

The Yiddish Gangster's Daughter

The Yiddish Gangster's Daughter PDF Author: Lipinsky Cochran Joan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780999828007
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book Here

Book Description
Finalist for the Claymore and Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards Since separating from her philandering husband, Boca Raton writer Becks Ruchinsky has struggled to build a closer relationship with her quirky and contentious father, Tootsie, who lives in a retirement home. One evening, as she and her father are relaxing on the home's front porch, an elderly woman accuses Tootsie of having murdered her husband fifty years earlier. Tootsie admits to ratting on the man, who'd cheated their Jewish syndicate boss out of thousands of dollars, but denies killing the widow's husband. He also admits to having friends in the Jewish mafia and shares stories about his experiences. But the more time she spends with her father, the more convinced Becks becomes that Tootsie is lying about his involvement. Determined to discover the truth about her dad's past, she sets out on a journey to undercover his darkest secrets. She learns he worked for the Jewish mafia -running numbers for the Cuban lottery, beating up Nazi sympathizers, and smuggling arms to Israeli independence fighters. When she learns that he murdered his best friend and, possibly, his own brother, she must decide if she can accept his criminal past - or cut him out of her life. The Yiddish Gangster's Daughter also explores the impact our parents' relationships have on our own. Throughout the book, Becks challenges her father on his infidelity toward her mother and becomes frustrated by his refusal to acknowledge that what he did was hurtful to his entire family. She's upset when Tootsie minimizes her husband's affair and encourages her to take him back. Ultimately, Becks realizes that she cannot forgive her husband for cheating until she comes to terms with her father's infidelities...and her mother's willingness to put up with them. A gripping and thought-provoking murder mystery, this award-winning novel explores the colorful and precarious world of the 1940s and 1950s Jewish mafia . . . and the limits of familial love. Praise for The Yiddish Gangster's Daughter . . . an engaging, multi-layered family saga cum mystery where a fifty-something woman and mother of two grown sons suddenly discovers that the comfortable, predictable life she has been living is nothing but a sham. Her attempts to make sense of her impossible new reality are both touching and gripping, making for a truly unique literary experience. Les Standiford, The Last Train to Paradise

The Hasidic Rebbe's Son

The Hasidic Rebbe's Son PDF Author: Joan Lipinsky Cochran
Publisher: Becks Ruchinsky Mystery
ISBN: 9780999828038
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
The murder of an ultra-religious student seeking refuge in her home forces an investigative reporter to explore the seedy underside of South Beach's glitzy nightclub scene and the insular world of Hasidic Judaism to find his killer. Boca Raton reporter Becks Ruchinsky is surprised when her son, Gabe, brings a frightened young man home from college and asks her to hide him. Menachem left his Hasidic community under mysterious circumstances and fears being kidnapped. Grateful to the young man for befriending her son, whose Asperger's makes friendships difficult, Becks takes in the boy. Six days later, he's found floating in a canal. Police insist Menachem's drowning was an accident but Becks isn't buying. Her investigation takes her from the gritty underworld of South Beach to secretive Hasidic communities in Miami and New York. With the help of her ex-gangster father Tootsie and a nosy Hasidic shopkeeper, Becks discovers the leader of a cult-like religious community is subverting rabbinic law to conceal ugly truths. As she uncovers layer upon layer of lies and deceptions, Becks discovers her son's life may depend on her ability to unearth these secrets.

Tommy Gun Winter

Tommy Gun Winter PDF Author: Nathan Gorenstein
Publisher: ForeEdge from University Press of New England
ISBN: 1611684269
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
This is the true tale of two brothers, sons of a successful Jewish contractor, who along with an MIT graduate and a minister's daughter once competed for headlines with John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd and Bonnie and Clyde. The gang was led by the angry, violent, yet often charismatic Murton Millen, a small-time hoodlum and aspiring race-car driver. With his younger brother, Irv, and later joined by neighborhood buddy and MIT graduate Abe Faber, Murt launched a career of increasingly ambitious robberies. But it was only after his sudden marriage to the beautiful eighteen-year-old Norma Brighton that the gang escalated to murder. Their crime wave climaxed at a Needham, Massachusetts, bank on February 2, 1934, when Murt cut down two local police officers - Francis Haddock and Forbes McLeod - with a Thompson submachine gun stolen from state police. The killings, the dogged investigation by two clever detectives, and the record-setting trial with seventeen psychiatrists were national news. In Depression-era America this Boston saga of sex, ethnicity, and bloodshed made the trio and their "red-headed gun moll" infamous. Gorenstein's account explores the Millen, Faber, and Brighton families and introduces us to cops, psychiatrists, newspaper men and women, and ordinary citizens caught up in the extraordinary Tommy Gun Winter of 1934.

Still Missing Beulah

Still Missing Beulah PDF Author: Joan Lipinsky Cochran
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780692298350
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description
Still Missing Beulah: Stories of Blacks and Jews in Mid-Century Miami It's the 1950s and Miami businessman Tootsie Plotnik counts his Bahamian mistress and his black business associates among his dearest friends. But he also refers to his African American employees using the derogatory Yiddish term, schvartz, and comes within inches of murdering an unarmed black teenager. Using linked short stories and brief historical accounts, Still Missing Beulah takes the reader into the heart and mind of an aging Jewish businessman whose prejudices are challenged by the black people who enter his life. Written in the same vein as The Help, this collection documents the struggles Jews and blacks faced during an era when both groups experienced rampant discrimination and signs prohibiting Jews and blacks in hotels and clubs were as pervasive as palm trees and mosquitoes.

Gangster's Daughter 4

Gangster's Daughter 4 PDF Author: Leo Sullivan
Publisher: Sullivan Group Publishing
ISBN: 194678950X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
In the gripping next installment of the Gangster's Daughter series, Kadisha continues her cat and mouse game of matching wits with Detective Steel as she simultaneously continues to eliminate her enemies. But are they really enemies, or are her real enemies the people she trusts the most? She tries to use her daddy's diary to help her decipher friend from foe but it seems that the deeper she gets into the diary, the more secrets are revealed. Will these secrets destroy everything she ever thought she knew about life and her family? Or will her true enemies take her down before she gets to the bottom of the mystery surrounding her family's murders? Come along for the wild ride with America's favorite Gangster's Daughter, Kadisha Spencer, and see if you can unravel the mystery before she can...

Newark Minutemen

Newark Minutemen PDF Author: Leslie K. Barry
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
ISBN: 1631950738
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
#1 bestseller and soon to be motion picture, Newark Minutemen has bridged generations. The epic based-on-true story of forbidden love and unholy heroism is set against the backdrop of an America ripped apart by the Great Depression and on the brink of war. Newark, NJ, 1938. Millions are out of work and robbed of dignity. A shadow Hitler-Nazi party called the German-American Bund that is led by an American Fuhrer threatens to swallow democracy. In this dangerous time of star-spangled fascism, a romance forms between the Jewish boxer, Yael and the daughter of the enemy, Krista. But 1930s America pulls them apart as Krista’s people want Yael’s dead. Then Yael is recruited by the mob to go undercover for the FBI against her people and bring down the German-American Bund. Author Leslie K. Barry captures an authentic and brave portrait of a lost America searching for identity, preserving legacy and saving its soul. It is a heartbreaking novel that crosses generations as it honors the fragility of freedom.

Moshkeleh the Thief

Moshkeleh the Thief PDF Author: Sholem Aleichem
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 082761876X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 73

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Book Description
This first English translation of Sholom Aleichem's rediscovered novel, Moshkeleh the Thief, has a riveting plot, an unusual love story, and a keenly observed portrayal of an underclass Jew replete with characters never before been seen in Yiddish literature. The eponymous hero, Moshkeleh, is a robust chap and horse thief. When Tsireleh, daughter of a tavern keeper, flees to a monastery with the man she loves--a non-Jew she met at the tavern--the humiliated tavern keeper's family turns to Moshkeleh for help, not knowing he too is in love with her. For some unknown reason, this innovative novel does not appear in the standard twenty-eight-volume edition of Sholom Aleichem's collected works, published after his death. Strikingly, Moshkeleh the Thief shows Jews interacting with non-Jews in the Russian Pale of Settlement--a groundbreaking theme in modern Yiddish literature. This novel is also important for Sholom Aleichem's approach to his material. Yiddish literature had long maintained a tradition of edelkeyt, refinement. Authors eschewed violence, the darker side of life, and people on the fringe of respectability. Moshkeleh thus enters a Jewish arena not hitherto explored in a novel.

Daughter of the King

Daughter of the King PDF Author: Sandra Lansky
Publisher: Weinstein Books
ISBN: 160286215X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
The daughter of one of the most powerful mobsters in America describes growing up amidst the glamour and tragedy of 1940s, 50s and 60s Las Vegas and recounts knowing Bugsy Siegel, Lucky Luciano and Frank Sinatra as a child.

Bad Rabbi

Bad Rabbi PDF Author: Eddy Portnoy
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503603970
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Stories abound of immigrant Jews on the outside looking in, clambering up the ladder of social mobility, successfully assimilating and integrating into their new worlds. But this book is not about the success stories. It's a paean to the bunglers, the blockheads, and the just plain weird—Jews who were flung from small, impoverished eastern European towns into the urban shtetls of New York and Warsaw, where, as they say in Yiddish, their bread landed butter side down in the dirt. These marginal Jews may have found their way into the history books far less frequently than their more socially upstanding neighbors, but there's one place you can find them in force: in the Yiddish newspapers that had their heyday from the 1880s to the 1930s. Disaster, misery, and misfortune: you will find no better chronicle of the daily ignominies of urban Jewish life than in the pages of the Yiddish press. An underground history of downwardly mobile Jews, Bad Rabbi exposes the seamy underbelly of pre-WWII New York and Warsaw, the two major centers of Yiddish culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With true stories plucked from the pages of the Yiddish papers, Eddy Portnoy introduces us to the drunks, thieves, murderers, wrestlers, poets, and beauty queens whose misadventures were immortalized in print. There's the Polish rabbi blackmailed by an American widow, mass brawls at weddings and funerals, a psychic who specialized in locating missing husbands, and violent gangs of Jewish mothers on the prowl—in short, not quite the Jews you'd expect. One part Isaac Bashevis Singer, one part Jerry Springer, this irreverent, unvarnished, and frequently hilarious compendium of stories provides a window into an unknown Yiddish world that was.

Tough Jews

Tough Jews PDF Author: Rich Cohen
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439142505
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Award-winning writer Rich Cohen excavates the real stories behind the legend of infamous criminal enforcers Murder, Inc. and contemplates the question: Where did the tough Jews go? In 1930s Brooklyn, there lived a breed of men who now exist only in legend and in the memories of a few old-timers: Jewish gangsters, fearless thugs with nicknames like Kid Twist Reles and Pittsburgh Phil Strauss. Growing up in Brownsville, they made their way from street fights to underworld power, becoming the execution squad for a national crime syndicate. Murder Inc. did for organized crime what Henry Ford did for the automobile, and Tough Jews is the first in-depth portrait of these men, a thrilling glimpse at the muscle that made possible the success of gangster statesmen such as Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and Lucky Luciano. For Rich Cohen, who grew up in suburban Illinois in the 1980s taunted by the stereotype of Jews as book-reading rule followers, the very idea of the Jewish gangster was a relief; for once, a Jew in jail did not have to be a white collar criminal. With a clear eye and a comic sensibility, Cohen looks beyond the blood and ultimately encounters each of these ruthless killers’ matzo-ball heart. Tough Jews shows what can happen when a member of the tribe combines brains, heart, and a dangerous determination never to back down.