Joshua Lionel Cowen, born Joshua Lionel Cohen, was an American inventor and cofounder of Lionel Corporation, a manufacturer of model railroads and toy trains who gained prominence in the market before and after World War II.
Arnold Rothstein, nicknamed "The Brain", was an American racketeer, crime boss, businessman, and gambler who became a kingpin of the Jewish Mob in New York City. Rothstein was widely reputed to have organized corruption in professional athletics, including conspiring to fix the 1919 World Series. He was also a mentor of future crime bosses Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Bugsy Siegel, and numerous others.
The Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion is a Jewish seminary with three locations in the United States and one location in Jerusalem. It is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism. HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, Ohio, New York City, Los Angeles, and Jerusalem. The Jerusalem campus is the only seminary in Israel for training Reform Jewish clergy.
Oppenheimer is a toponymic surname, derived from the German town Oppenheim, common among Germans and Ashkenazi Jews.
Maspeth is a residential and commercial community in the borough of Queens in New York City. It was founded in the early 17th century by Dutch and English settlers. Neighborhoods sharing borders with Maspeth are Woodside to the north; Sunnyside to the northwest; Greenpoint, Brooklyn to the west; East Williamsburg, Brooklyn to the southwest; Fresh Pond and Ridgewood to the south; and Middle Village and Elmhurst to the east.
Middle Village is a neighborhood in the central section of the borough of Queens, New York City, bounded to the north by the Long Island Expressway, to the east by Woodhaven Boulevard, to the south by Cooper Avenue and the former LIRR Montauk Branch railroad tracks, and to the west by Mount Olivet Cemetery. The small trapezoid-shaped area bounded by Mt. Olivet Crescent to the east, Fresh Pond Road to the west, Eliot Avenue to the north, and Metropolitan Avenue to the south is often counted as part of Middle Village, but is sometimes considered part of nearby Ridgewood.
Salem Fields Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery located at 775 Jamaica Avenue in the Cypress Hills neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, United States, within the Cemetery Belt. It was founded in 1852 by Congregation Emanu-El of New York.
Ludwig Teller was an American lawyer, politician, and World War II veteran from New York. From 1957 to 1961, he served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Jacob Joseph served as chief rabbi of New York City's Association of American Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, a federation of Eastern European Jewish synagogues, from 1888 until his death in 1902. Born in Krozhe, a province of Kovno, he studied in the Nevyozer Kloiz under Rabbi Yisrael Salanter and in the Volozhin yeshiva under the Netziv. In Volozhin, he was known as "Rav Yaakov Charif" because of his sharp mind.
Gratz College is a private Jewish college in Melrose Park, Pennsylvania, United States. The college traces its origins to 1856 when banker, philanthropist, and communal leader Hyman Gratz and the Hebrew Education Society of Philadelphia joined to establish a trust to create a Hebrew teachers college. Gratz is a graduate college located in a suburban setting, with fully online courses.
Jewish-American organized crime initially emerged within the American Jewish community during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In media and popular culture, it has variously been referred to as the Jewish Mob, the Jewish Mafia, the Kosher Mob, the Kosher Mafia, the Yiddish Connection, 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.
Irving Wexler better known as Waxey Gordon, was an American gangster who specialized in bootlegging and illegal gambling. An associate of Arnold Rothstein during prohibition, he was caught up in a power struggle following Rothstein's death. Fellow Rothstein associates Charles "Lucky" Luciano and Meyer Lansky provided authorities with evidence that led to his imprisonment for ten years.
Mount Hebron is a Jewish cemetery located in Flushing, Queens, New York, United States. It was founded in 1903 as the Jewish section of Cedar Grove Cemetery, and occupies the vast majority of the grounds at Cedar Grove. The cemetery is on the former Spring Hill estate of colonial governor Cadwallader Colden. Mount Hebron is arranged in blocks, which are then split up into sections or society grounds. Sections were originally sold mainly to families or Jewish community groups such as landsmanshaftn, mutual aid societies, and burial societies. For instance, Mount Hebron is known for having a section reserved for people who worked in New York City's Yiddish theater industry. While this type of organization is common for American Jewish cemeteries, Mount Hebron has an especially diverse range of society grounds. About 226,000 people have been buried in Mount Hebron since it opened.
Montefiore Cemetery, also known as Old Montefiore Cemetery, is a Jewish cemetery in Springfield Gardens, Queens, New York, established in 1908. The cemetery is called by several names, including Old Montefiore, Springfield, or less commonly, just Montefiore. More than 150,000 have been buried there.
Congregation Rodeph Sholom is a Reform Jewish synagogue at 7 West 83rd Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York. Founded in 1842 by German Jewish immigrants, it is one of the oldest synagogues in the United States.
B'nai Jeshurun is a non-denominational Jewish synagogue located at 257 West 88th Street and 270 West 89th Street, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in New York City, New York, United States.
Phillip "Dandy Phil" Kastel was a Jewish-American organized crime figure, gambler, and longtime associate of both the Genovese and New Orleans crime family.
David M. Posner was an American rabbi who led the flagship reform temple, Temple Emanu-El, in New York, NY for 40 years as a congregational rabbi. He died from complications of Alzheimer's disease
Solomon Marcuse Stroock was a Jewish-American lawyer from New York.
