Jack Zelig

"Big" Jack Zelig (May 13, 1888-October 5, 1912) was a New York gangster and one of the last leaders of the Monk Eastman Gang.

Early years & the Eastmans

Born "Zelig Harry Lefkowitz" (or "William Alberts"), as early as 6 years old Zelig became a well known pickpocket(taking only pennies) and thief while growing up on New York's Lower East Side as a member of Crazy Butch's pickpocket gang before joining the Eastman Gang in the late 1890s. Rising up the ranks, Zelig became leader of the Eastman Gang after "Kid Twist" Max Zwerbach's death in 1908. With lieutenants Jack Sirocco and Chick Tricker, the gang had over seventy-five members, including satellite gangs such as the Lenox Avenue Gang, led by "Gyp the Blood" Harry Horowitz.

Feud with Sirocco and Tricker

After being arrested in 1911 for robbing a brothel, Sirocco and Trick attempted to gain leadership of the gang refusing to bail out Zelig. Zelig was later released due to his political connections however he was informed by a member that Sirocco and Tricker were planning on murdering him upon his release. The assassin, a gunman named Julie Morrell, was lured by Zelig to The Stuyvesant Casino (140 Second Avenue, now the Ukrainian National Home) where he was killed, possibly while intoxicated, by the gang leader on December 2.

The next year, however, the old Eastman/Five Points feud flared anew. As Zelig left the Criminal Courts on afternoon in early June 1912, he was shot through the neck by a Five Points gunman named Charley Torti, who was a known associate of Louis Pioggi, aka Louie the Lump, who had gunned down Zelig's mentor, Kid Twist Zwerbach, four years earlier. Big Jack amazingly recovered from his wound in time to be dragged into the Becker/Rosenthal case.

Zelig's home address during this time was 286 Broome Street.

Final years

Charles Becker, a corrupt NYPD lieutenant, had had Zelig in his pocket for quite some time, and in the summer of 1912, Becker was named as a prime extortionist in the underworld. A New York World exposed named him as one of three corrupt police officers involved in the case of Herman Rosenthal, a small time bookmaker who had complained to the press that his illegal businesses had been badly damaged by the greed of the city's corrupt police officers.

Becker told Jack Zelig and members of the Lenox Avenue Gang, specifically, Harry "Gyp the Blood" Horowitz, Jacob "Whitey Lewis" Seidenshner, Louis "Lefty Louie" Rosenberg, and Francesco "Dago Frank" Cirofisi, that he wanted Rosenthal "croaked". The gambler was gunned down in from of a Times Square joint called the Metropole Hotel on July 16, 1912, two days after his story appeared in the newspapers. In the aftermath, the District Attorney, Charles S. Whitman, made no secret of his belief that the gangsters who killed him had committed the murder at Becker's behest.

The fall-out from the Rosenthal murder was huge, making national headlines. All of Big Jack's henchmen were rounded up and charged with murder. It was widely whispered that their boss would testify against them in exchange for leniency. The day before he could, October 5,1912, Zelig was shot behind the ear and killed by "Boston Red" Phil Davidson (of 111 E.7th Street) while riding on a 2nd Avenue trolley car while passing Thirteenth Street. It was an apparent set-up. Zelig was hanging out at Segal's cafe (76 Second Avenue, now a church), when he received an anonymous phone call requesting his presence on 14th street. Zelig jumped on the uptown trolley; when he stood up at the intersection of 13th street, Davidson approached him and killed him with a police revolver. Davidson ran East on 14th Street where he ran into a police officer on beat patrol who made him drop his weapon. [Ferrara, Eric (2008), "Gangsters, Murderers & Weirdos of the Lower East Side; A self-guided walking tour"]

Davidson claimed he had shot Zelig over a $400 dollar grudge, but most believed he had been killed to keep him from testifying against Charles Becker in the Rosenthal murder case involving the Lenox Avenue Gang.

Shortly after Zelig's death New York detective Abe Shoenfeld wrote "Jack Zelig is as dead as a door nail. Men before him - like Kid Twist, Monk Eastman and others - were as pygmies to a giant. With the passing of Zelig, one of the most 'nerviest', strongest, and best men of his kind left us."

Notes

Further reading

* Fried, Albert. "The Rise and fall of the Jewish Gangster in America", Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1980
* Rockaway, Robert A. (2000). "BUT HE WAS GOOD TO HIS MOTHER: The Lives and Crimes of Jewish Gangsters". Gefen Publishing House. ISBN 965-229-249-4
* Downey, Patrick. "Gangster City: The History of the New York Underworld 1900-1935". Barricade Books, 2004. ISBN 1-56980-267-X
* Ferrara, Eric. "Gangsters, Murderers & Weirdos of the Lower East Side; A self-guided walking tour". 2008

External links

* [http://www.jackzelig.com Jack Zelig website]
* [http://www.aj6.org/jpbo/411/page2.html But he was Good to his Mother: A story of Jewish Gangsters - Jack Zelig]
* [http://members.tripod.com/Fighting9th/History13.htm Corner of Second Avenue and 13th Street]
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=zelig&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GRid=21548& Big Jack Zelig] at Find A Grave
* [http://www.patrickdowney.com/lower-east1.html Zelig & the Lower Eastside] Gangster City
* [http://east-village.com/gangs Gangs of the Lower East Side; Profiles, timeline, map, more!]