Jewish Mafia Once Took on Nazis in the Streets of NYC 

New York City, April 1938. The German American bun marched down East 86th Street. Brown shirts, swastika armbands, goosestepping boots on American asphalt. 3,000 men strong. They call this stretch sauerkraut boulevard. Most of Yorkville’s Germans are ordinary people, shopkeepers, factory workers trying to blend into America.

 But not these men. One in 500 German immigrants joins the bund. That’s about 25,000 Americans pledging loyalty to Adolf Hitler. The Bunt literature calls Jews a menace. A threat to democracy. In Germany, the headlines grow darker each month. Nuremberg laws. Crystalallnot coming. New York’s Jewish community watches from tenement windows.

 Many have families still in Europe. The fear is real. The rage is building. Nathan David Pearlman sits in that saloon. Former United States Congressman, respected judge, watching brown shirts parade past his window. He sees where this leads. He studied the pattern. Germany started with rallies, too. Then came the violence. Then came the camps.

 He knows these Nazis are building something dangerous. The demonstrations are legal. First Amendment protects even fascists. Police can’t touch them. Pearlman has a revelation. He says it out loud. What those Nazis need is a good ass whipping. He knows exactly who can deliver it. He picks up a phone, calls Meer Lansky.

Meer Lansky grew up on the Lower East Side, learned to fight before he learned to read. Built an empire with Benjamin Seagull and Charles Luciano. They formed the five families, ran bookmaking operations, bootlegging during prohibition, opened casinos. Lansky is the smart one, the financial brain, but he remembers the streets.

 He knows how to hurt people when necessary. The phone rings. Lansky answers. Pearlman asks, “You got some boys who might want to punch a Nazi?” Lansky doesn’t hesitate. I do, judge. Respectfully, you understand we can do better than Punch. I know just the crew in Brownsville. The boys in the press call them murder inc. Pearlman stops him.

 I want you to do anything but kill them. Lansky understands. The judge wants a message sent, not a massacre. The Bund schedules a celebration. April 20th, 1938, Hitler’s 49th birthday. They plan a march from Carl Schz Park to the Yorkville Casino at 210 East 86th Street. Inside the casino, they hang swastikas.

 Post photographs of the furer. Fritz will give a speech.  leads the bunt. Calls himself the American furer. Claims Hitler shook his hand once. Uses that photograph everywhere. Lansky assembles his crew. These are not ordinary gangsters. These are killers with day jobs. Murder incorporated. The enforcement arm of organized crime. Men who kill for money.

Men who never get caught. Mendy Weiss. Kidnapper and choker. Uses his hands. Uggsy Goldstein. Cracks jokes while working. Finds murder amusing. Harry Strauss. They call him Pep. One of the most prolific contract killers in New York. Jacob Ducker, the Icepic Man. That’s his signature. 15 men total. Some for Murder Inc.

 Some Jewish toughs who just want a piece of this action. They split into three groups. Five outside the casino. Baseball bats and pool cues. They’ll catch the runners. Five on the second floor. High ground advantage. They’ll rain down punches on anyone below. The rest sit in the back of the ballroom with Lansky, dress like civilians.

 Wear American Legion caps for cover. April 20th arrives. The Bund Marshes. 3,000 men in formation. Boots hitting pavement in rhythm. Nazi flags flying over American streets. They reach the Yorkville Casino. File inside. Fill the ballroom.  begins his speech praising Hitler. Condemning Jews, the crowd cheers, raises their arms in salute.

 Hile Hitler echoes off the walls. Lansky’s men sit quietly. Wait for the signal. Let the speech go on just long enough. Then someone throws the first punch. Chaos erupts. 15 gangsters attack from three sides. Baseball bats crack skulls. Pool cues shatter ribs. Fists find faces. The Nazis outnumber them 200 to one.

 Doesn’t matter. These men march in formation. They don’t fight in alleys. The gangsters hurt people for a living. They know exactly where to hit, how hard to swing, which bones break easiest. Nazis try to run. The crew outside blocks the exits. More bats, more blood. Some Nazis fight back, use their belt buckles as weapons. Doesn’t help.

 The gangsters are faster, meaner, hungrier for this. On the second floor, the high ground team rains down blows on anyone trying to climb up. Nuts fall backwards into the crowd. Create more panic, more confusion. Bugsy Goldstein grabs one mouthy bun member, beats him half unconscious, drags him to a second story window. Jacob Ducker helps.

 They throw the Nazi out. He crashes through glass, falls to the street below. Leg shatters on impact. He survives barely. The fight lasts minutes. Feels like hours. When it’s over, injured nuts scatter everywhere. Blood on the floor, blood on the walls, some unconscious, concussions, compound fractures,shattered bones.

 The gangsters only challenge was restraint. Not killing anyone took more discipline than the violence itself. The gangsters dropped their weapons, remove their American Legion caps, slip into the night. Nobody identifies them. Nobody testifies. The police arrive too late. Next day, the New York Times publishes a story, blames the American Legion, says veterans attacked the Nazis.

 Exactly as Lansky planned. Judge Pearlman offers payment. Lansky refuses. I need no pay, judge. I am a Jew. I feel for the Jews in Europe who are suffering. The Battle of Yorkville sends a message. Nazis bleed like everyone else. Word spreads through the bund. Next rally scheduled for White Plains. Only 250 knots show. They expected 1,000.

 Many still wear bandages from Yorkville. Police presence is heavy. Lansky’s crew can’t get inside the arena, but Lansky adapts. He bribes two local Jewish teenagers. $1 each. gives them glass bottles with corks stoppers filled with chemical stink bones. The boys smuggle them inside. Wait for the speech to begin. First boy yells, “Hitler’s got one ball.

” Both throw their vials toward the stage. Glass shatters. Chemical stench fills the arena. Crowd gags. Runs for exits. Takes an hour to air out the building. By then, even fewer Nazis remain. Half the seats sit empty. Lansk’s war of intimidation works. The bun shrinks. Morale collapses. Judge Pearlman expands the operation.

 Reaches out to other cities. Chicago has a Nazi problem, too. Boarding house signs announce no Jews or dogs allowed. The city’s German population supports rallies. V meetings draw hundreds. Pearlman contacts Jake Guzik. They call him Greasy Thumb. Alapone’s right-hand man, senior Jewish boss in Chicago, financial genius, political fixer.

 Guzz earned his nickname by greasing palms, bribing officials, making problems disappear. Pearlman asks the same question. You know people who can punch a Nazi? Guick smiles. I do. He recruits Jewish boxers, tough guys from Chicago’s West Side, men who fight in illegal rings, men who collect debts for the outfit. One of them is Jacob Rubenstein, young, hungry, quick with his fists.

 Years later, the world will know him as Jack Ruby, the man who kills Lee Harvey Oswald. But in 1938, he’s just another Jewish kid who hates Nazis. Chicago’s Bund meets in rented halls, expects friendly crowds. Instead, they find music’s crew waiting. Same pattern as New York. Let them gather. Let the speeches start, then attack fast, brutal, overwhelming.

Rubenstein and others rush the stage. Baseball bats swing. Nazis fall. Some try to fight back. Most run. By 1939, every Nazi in Chicago knows what happens at their rallies. They know Jewish gangsters hunt them. Attendance drops. Fear rises. Pearlman moves west. Los Angeles, Detroit, Cleveland. Each city has a bunt chapter.

 Each chapter holds rallies. Pearlman connects with local Jewish gangsters. Same question every time. You got boys who want to punch a Nazi? The answer is always yes. Mickey Cohen in Los Angeles, Detroit’s Purple Gang, Cleveland’s Jewish mob, all agree. All volunteer their muscle. None ask for payment. This isn’t business.

 This is personal. Every fight ends the same way. Nazis flee. Nazis cry. Nazis cover their faces. The gangsters overwhelm them every time. These men have an appetite for violence that terrifies their opponents. After each beating, the gangsters deliver the same message. Next time, we ain’t going to be so nice. The bun tries New Jersey.

 Newark has a large German population. Third ward becomes their target. They post flyers, announce meetings, promise a future where Jewish blood runs in New York streets. But Newark as Abnner’s Wilman, they call him Longi. Grew up in the third ward. Orthodox Jewish family. Worked as a vegetable salesman. Faced anti-Semitic attacks as a teenager.

 Learned to fight back. Built a criminal empire. Bootlegging numbers rackets labor racketeering. Controls Newark’s underworld. Judge Pearlman calls Zulman. Explains the situation. Zwillman doesn’t need conmenincing. He already hates the Bunt, their threats against his community. Their swastikas on his streets. He funds a new organization.

Calls them the anti-Nazi Minutemen of America. Swilman appoints Nat Arno as commander. Arno’s real name is Sydney Nathaniel Abramowitz. Professional boxer, featherweight, and lightweight classes. Career record of 81 wins, 23 losses, 13 draws, 21 knockouts. Only stopped once in 118 fights. Knows how to take punishment.

 Knows how to give it. Arno recruits other boxers. Golden Gloves champions, street fighters, mob enforcers. Harry Lavine, they call him the dropper. Knocks knots unconscious with single punches. Haimey Cougall the weasel uses a frying pan. Swings it like a weapon. Crushes Nazi skulls. Putty hinks. Just loves to fight. Complains afterward.

 Says it’s a shame they can’t kill them all. The minute men train, practice formations, plan tactics, wait for the boot to maketheir move. The Nazis schedule a rally, rent a hall, expect a friendly crowd. The minute men arrive first, blend into the audience. Wait, speeches begin. Praise for Hitler.

 Condemnation of Jews, the usual rhetoric. Then the minute men stand, pull out weapons hidden undercoats, baseball bats, lead pipes, brass knuckles. They rush the stage, attack from all sides. Nazis scatter, try to escape. Minutemen block the doors. Beat them as they flee. Kougall swings his frying pan. Connects with faces. Bones break. Blood flows.

 Lavine works the crowd. Drops nuts with precision shots. One punch each. They don’t get up. The fights repeat. Each bunt meeting ends the same way. Violence, blood, fear, Nazi attendance plummets. Some stop coming entirely. Others move meetings to secret locations. Doesn’t help. The minute men have informants.

 They know where the Nazis gather. They show up. They attack. Swilman bankrolls the operation. Pays for weapons. Bails out arrested Minutemen. Bribes officials when necessary. Makes the legal problems disappear. The Minutemen operate freely. Police look the other way. Even cops hate Nazis. By 1939, the German American bunt faces a crisis.

 Rallies draw smaller crowds. Members fear public gatherings. The gangsters have done what the government couldn’t. Made Nazism dangerous in America. Not through laws, through fists. But the bun tries one last time. Fritzkun schedules a massive rally. Madison Square Garden, February 20th, 1939. calls it a pro-American rally.

 Really just another Nazi celebration. Kung expects his biggest crowd yet. Wants to prove the bunt still has power. Still has support. 20,000 people buy tickets. Fill the garden. Nazi flags everywhere. Swastikas on banners. Portrait of George Washington flanked by Nazi symbols trying to wrap fascism in American imagery. Outside, thousands protest.

Mayor Fierella LaGuardia deploys 1,700 police. Most cops ever for a single event. Lansky’s crew waits in the crowd. Can’t bring weapons past security. Too many cops, but they work the perimeter. Beat Nazis trying to enter. Knock them down before they reach the doors. Many uniformed Bunt members never make it inside. Arrive at hospitals instead.

Inside Madison Square Garden, Fritz takes the stage. 20,000 Nazi supporters fill the seats. They salute. They cheer.  calls himself the American forer. Denounces President Roosevelt. Calls him Rosenfeld. Claims Jewish conspiracy controls America. The crowd eats it up. Shouts approval. Waves swastika flags. But outside the tide turns.

 Protesters outnumber supporters, Jewish groups, labor unions, veterans, ordinary New Yorkers who reject fascism. They see the swastikas. Here the chance. Watch Nazis enter their city’s most famous arena. The anger builds. Small fights break out. Lansky’s crew works the edges. Finds isolated Nazis. Delivers beatings away from police eyes.

 Quick, efficient, brutal. The Nazis learn to travel in groups. Doesn’t always help. Inside the rally, a young Jewish man rushes the stage. Isidor Green though, 26 years old from Brooklyn. He sees speaking, hears the lies, can’t take it anymore. He runs toward the platform, wants to confront the American furer, wants to stop the hate speech.

 Security grabs him. Police pull him back. Bunt guards beat him. They punch. They kick. 22 cops and bunt guards drag Greenbound away. His pants torn, face bloody, but his action becomes [clears throat] a symbol. One man willing to fight back. Even alone, even against impossible odds. The rally continues. finishes his speech.

 The crowd disperses, but the damage is done. Newspapers nationwide publish photographs. Show swastikas in Madison Square Garden. Show Nazi salutes on American soil. Show George Washington’s portrait used to promote Hitler’s ideology. The American public reacts with disgust. Mainstream Germans distance themselves from the bunt. Politicians condemn the rally.

 Even Nazi sympathizers realize the optics are terrible. The Madison Square Garden rally becomes the Bunt’s high water mark. After February 1939, everything declines. Membership drops. Donations dry up. Internal investigations begin. The FBI watches them. Treasury Department examines their finances. Fritz gets caught embezzling bunt funds. Arrested.

convicted, sentenced to prison. The organization splinters without him. By 1940, a German American bunt exists in name only. Chapters close. Meetings stop. Members hide their past affiliations. The gangsters won not through one big fight. through consistent harassment, constant violence, making every Nazi gathering dangerous, creating fear, destroying morale, Jewish gangsters in every major city report the same results.

 Nazis stop marching, stop recruiting, stop holding public rallies. The war in Europe intensifies. Hitler invades Poland. September 1939, Britain and France declare war. America stays neutral, but public opinion shifts. Support for Nazism becomes treason. Supporting Hitler becomes supporting the enemy. December 7th,1941.

Pearl Harbor. Japan attacks. America enters World War II. Germany declares war on the United States. The Bund becomes illegal overnight. Members face investigation. Some get arrested. Many lose their jobs, face social ostracism, community rejection. The gangsters who fought them years earlier never get official recognition.

No medals, no ceremonies, no public acknowledgement. Most die in obscurity. Some survive into old age. They don’t talk about it much. Just another job, another fight. Meer Lansky never speaks publicly about the Yorkville battle. never seeks credit, never writes memoirs. But those who knew him remember his explanation when offered payment.

 I need no pay, judge. I am a Jew. I feel for the Jews in Europe who are suffering. Lansky calls it his patriotic duty. Mickey Cohen says the same. Jake Guzk, Looney, Wilman, all of them. Different cities, different crews, same motivation. Stop fascism, protect their people, do what the government won’t. History remembers them as criminals, murderers, extortionists, thieves, all true.

 But for a brief moment in the late 1930s, they stood between American Nazis and Jewish communities, used their violence for something beyond profit, beyond territory, beyond criminal empire building. Nat Arno and his Newark Minutemen dispand after Pearl Harbor. No longer needed. The Nazis are gone. The war is official.

 Arno returns to boxing, then to obscurity. Dies in 1973. Few remember his name. Fewer remember what he did. Harry Strauss. Usy Goldstein. Both get caught for other murders. Murder Incorporated gets exposed. Abe Reels turns informant, testifies against dozens of gangsters. Strauss and Goldstein face trial for multiple homicides, get convicted, die in the electric chair. June 12th, 1941.

Their fight against Nazis never mentioned in court doesn’t help their case. Judge sees only killers. Jacob Rubenstein becomes Jack Ruby, moves to Dallas, opens nightclubs. November 22nd, 1963. President Kennedy dies. 2 days later, Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald. Claims he did it for Jackie Kennedy so she wouldn’t have to testify.

 Nobody mentions his past, his fights against Chicago Nazis, his work for Jake Dusk. History remembers him only as Oswald’s killer. Meer Lansky outlives them all. Dies January 15th, 1983. Miami Beach, age 80. Spent decades building his criminal empire. Kuba, Las Vegas, Bahamas. Always denied being a gangster. Called himself a businessman.

But those who knew him remembered the other side. The side that fought Nazis for free. The side that said he felt for suffering Jews. The side that made the German American Bund afraid to march in New York. By Pearl Harbor, the Bund was through. Chased out, beaten down, made irrelevant.

 The gangsters accomplished what politicians couldn’t, what laws wouldn’t allow. They made fascism physically dangerous in America. Made wearing a swastika invite a beating. made supporting Hitler a risk to personal safety. The methods were illegal. The violence undeniable, but the results speak. Between 1938 and 1941, the German American bunt held fewer rallies, recruited fewer members, lost public support, became isolated, became afraid.

 The gangsters achieved what they set out to do. Not through persuasion, not through debate, through baseball bats and brass knuckles and fists. The blood washed away within hours. The bruises healed, the bones mended, but the fear remained. The Nazis learned one lesson. Jews fight back. Even criminals, even killers, especially when their people face extinction across the ocean.

 The gangsters didn’t save Europe. couldn’t stop the Holocaust, but they stopped the Nazis from building power in America, stopped them from normalizing, stopped them from marching freely down New York streets. That counted for something.