The Yiddish Black Hand

Started by CrackSmokeRepublican, May 30, 2011, 11:52:38 PM

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CrackSmokeRepublican


Yiddish Black Hand



The Yiddish Black Hand or the Jewish Black Hand Association was a criminal organization that operated on New York's Lower East Side during the early 20th century, led by Jacob "Johnny" Levinsky. Around 1906, Levinsky, with Charles "Charley the Cripple" Vitoffsky and Joseph Toplinsky, began an extortion ring from their hangout at a Suffolk Street saloon, delivering anonymous letters signed as the "Yiddish Black Hand" threatening to steal or poison the horses of local pushcart vendors and other businessmen. This method was used earlier by Neapolitan Camorristi, Sicilian mafiosi and others who preyed on Italian immigrants as the Black Hand. Within three years, the ice cream manufacturers' association created a commercial fund from which they would annually pay off the organization.

By the end of 1913, having gained a virtual monopoly in their criminal activities, the three reorganized their criminal organization with Levinsky concentrating on extortion in the ice cream trade, Vitoffsky focusing on job offers between rival dealers and manufacturers of seltzer and soda while Toplinsky cornered the produce market, truckmen and livery stables. Although the three often worked independently from each other, they did work together when hired out for specific jobs such as assault, theft, and murder for hire. A member who had turned informant provided a description of their rates:

    Shooting, fatal - $500
    Shooting, not fatal - $100
    Poisoning a team - $50
    Poisoning one horse - $35
    Stealing a horse and a rig - $25

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From:
The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld
 By Herbert Asbury

http://books.google.com/books?id=ceY_ISKGRIsC
After the Revolution of 1905, the Czar had prudently prepared for further outbreaks by transferring some $400 million in cash to the New York banks, Chase, National City, Guaranty Trust, J.P.Morgan Co., and Hanover Trust. In 1914, these same banks bought the controlling number of shares in the newly organized Federal Reserve Bank of New York, paying for the stock with the Czar\'s sequestered funds. In November 1917,  Red Guards drove a truck to the Imperial Bank and removed the Romanoff gold and jewels. The gold was later shipped directly to Kuhn, Loeb Co. in New York.-- Curse of Canaan