Louis Buchalter, known as Louis Lepke or Lepke Buchalter, was an American mobster and head of the Mafia hit squad Murder, Inc., during the 1930s. Buchalter was one of the premier labor racketeers in New York City during that era.
"Kid Dropper" Nathan Caplin or Kaplan, also known as Jack the Dropper, was an American gangster who controlled labor racketeering and extortion in New York City during the post-World War I period into the early years of Prohibition in the early 1920s.
Johnny Spanish was an American gangster who was a rival of former partner "Kid Dropper" Nathan Kaplan during a garment workers' strike which later become known as the Second Labor Sluggers War in 1919. He became involved in labor racketeering, holdups of saloons and other businesses, and murder before organizing his own gang.
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) was a United States labor union known for its support for "social unionism" and progressive political causes. Led by Sidney Hillman for its first thirty years, it helped found the Congress of Industrial Organizations. It merged with the Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA) in 1976 to form the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU), which merged with the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union in 1995 to create the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). UNITE merged in 2004 with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) in 2004 to create a new union known as UNITE HERE. After a bitter internal dispute in 2009, the majority of the UNITE side of the union, along with some of the disgruntled HERE locals left UNITE HERE, and formed a new union named Workers United, led by former UNITE president Bruce Raynor.
Benjamin "Dopey Benny" Fein was an early Jewish American gangster who dominated New York labor racketeering in the 1910s. With a criminal record dating back to 1900, Fein's arrest record included thirty charges from petty theft and assault to grand larceny and murder. Fein was nicknamed "Dopey Benny" because of his eyes always being halfway-closed due to a medical condition.
Albert Tannenbaum, nicknamed Allie or Tick-Tock, was a Jewish-American hitman for Murder, Inc., the enforcement arm of the National Crime Syndicate, during the 1930s.
Jewish-American organized crime initially emerged within the American Jewish community during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It has been referred to variously in media and popular culture as the Jewish Mob, Jewish Mafia, Kosher Mob, Kosher Mafia, and Kosher Nostra or Undzer Shtik. The last two of these terms are direct references to the Italian cosa nostra; the former is a play on the word for kosher, referring to Jewish dietary laws, while the latter is a calque of the Italian phrase 'cosa nostra' into Yiddish, which was at the time the predominant language of the Jewish diaspora in the United States.
Meyer (1908–1931), Irving (1904–1931) and William Shapiro (1911–1934), collectively known as the Shapiro Brothers were the leaders of a group of Jewish-American mobsters from New York City and based in Williamsburg. Well established in the local garment industry, long dominated by Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro and Louis "Lepke" Buchalter since the 1927 death of Jacob "Little Augie" Orgen, the two began to move against them in the summer of 1931. As the two sides battled for the garment industry in Brooklyn, Irving and Meyer Shapiro were killed by Joseph and Louis Amberg; Irving was gunned down near his apartment on July 11, and Meyer was found shot to death in the basement of a tenement building on Manhattan's Lower East Side on September 17, 1931. Three years later, on orders from Buchalter, Willie Shapiro was finally killed by Murder, Inc. members Martin "Bugsy" Goldstein and Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, supposedly being buried alive in a sandpit in the marshland of Canarsie by Reles, the Amberg brothers, and Frank Abbandando and Harry Maione on the night of July 20, 1934.
Jacob "Little Augie" Orgen was a New York gangster involved in bootlegging and labor racketeering during Prohibition.
Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro was a New York mobster who, with his partner Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, controlled industrial labor racketeering in New York for two decades and established the Murder, Inc. organization.
Joseph "Joe The Greaser" Rosenzweig was an American New York City labor racketeer in the early 1900s as an ally of "Dopey" Benny Fein during the Labor Slugger Wars (1914–1917).
Hyman "Curly" Holtz, also known as "Little Hymie", was a New York labor racketeer who began working as a labor slugger for Jacob "Little Augie" Orgen during the early 1920s.
Philip "Pinchy" Paul was an early New York labor racketeer who led an alliance of independent labor sluggers in an attempt to break the monopoly long held by Joseph "Joe the Greaser" Rosenweig and Benjamin "Dopey Benny" Fein resulting in the first Labor Slugger War. A "starker" for the Furriers Union, Paul became involved in an altercation with Rosenzweig at Rivington Street movie theater on May 8, 1914. He was eventually gunned down and killed on Norfolk Street by Benjamin Snyder under orders from Rosenzweig. Rosenzweig was later indicted for Paul's murder and, agreeing to turn state's evidence along with Fein, would bring an end to the first Labor Slugger War.
Louis Cohen was a New York mobster who murdered labor racketeer "Kid Dropper" Nathan Kaplan and was an associate of labor racketeer Louis "Lepke" Buchalter. He was killed along with Isadore Friedman, another Buchalter associate, who was believed to be an informant. It is not known whether Cohen was murdered for being a potential informant or whether he was accidentally killed during the shooting that was supposed to target Friedman.
Samuel "Sammy" Weiss was a New York mobster and an associate of labor racketeer Jacob "Little Augie" Orgen. Employed as a gunman for Orgen and the "Little Augies", he took part in the gang war against Nathan Kaplan during the early 1920s. On the afternoon of August 28, 1923, several men were spotted by police shortly before Kaplan was to leave the Essex Market Courthouse. Although the men scattered as police officers approached, Weiss, Orgen and Samuel Gepson were arrested near the courthouse. Finding all three men to be carrying revolvers, the three were arrested and charged with violation of the Sullivan Law and arraigned at Essex Market Courthouse the following day.
Benjamin "Benny" Snyder or Schneider was an American criminal, union organizer and thug for hire during the turn of the century. A veteran gunman for New York labor racketeer Joseph "Joe the Greaser" Rosenzweig, his murder of Rosenzweig's rival Philip "Pinchy" Paul ended the first of the so-called "Labor Slugger Wars", which would continue on and off for well over a decade.
Jack Sirocco (1882–1954) was a New York City gangster involved in labor racketeering and strikebreaking. Originally a lieutenant in Paul Kelly's Five Points Gang, where he was the immediate boss of Johnny Torrio, Sirocco defected to the rival Eastman Gang, which he led in its last days.
