Are there Gangsters in Your Tree?
Submitted by szucker on Tue, 06/29/2010 - 01:55Tell us about the mobster stories in your mishpacha.
With a packed schedule of over 50 classic and contemporary Jewish films from across the globe, the 30th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival offers a lot to choose from. One of the most talked about programs this season is Tough Guys: Images of Jewish Gangsters in Film, a special Anniversary retrospective on the elusive, but culturally-important Jewish gangster film.
Sure, people are talking about the films themselves, and about the complex issues they explore. But lately we've also been hearing conversations of a more personal nature. It seems that many of you have family tales about encounters with real live Jewish gangsters. You’d be surprised how common these stories are -- Jewish gangsters were, in many ways, just part of immigrant life in urban America in the 1930s and 1940s. In fact, our own Tough Guys guest curator Nancy K. Fishman became interested in programming Jewish gangster films thanks to her grandparents’ memorable run-in with a Jewish gangster: “My grandparents, Abe and Frederica Fishman, received a funeral wreath from New York gangster Dopey Benny Fein (who earned his nickname because of a thyroid condition that lead to his having bulging eyes) because they didn’t want to pay him protection money,” said Fishman. “For years, I thought Dopey Benny Fein’s name had been made up by my family, until I started reading about Jewish gangsters and found out he was the real deal.” Do a little digging into your family stories, and you too might uncover a Jewish gangster or someone who paid off a Jewish gangster. Do you have a gangster spiel in your family tree? A mobster story in your mishpacha? We want to hear your about it, and we know we're not the only ones! Consider sharing your own family's gangster tales with the rest of the audience. It’s easy to do, and there are several ways to participate: A. Sign in and add your own Jewish gangster tale in the comment chain below. B. Add your testimonial to our Facebook page. C. Keep it short-and-sweet with a tweet. Tell us a shorthand version of your story on Twitter using the hashtag #gangstersinmytree. We'll track the tweets and add them to our website. D. Email your story, and photos if you have them, to us at jewishfilm@sfjff.org, and we will post them for you. We look forward to hearing about the gangsters in your tree, and stay tuned for more details about this collection of family histories about, well, the "family." 
- szucker's blog
- Login or register to post comments
