The Jews of Eighteenth-Century Jamaica: A Testamentary History of a Diaspora in Transition by Stanley Mirvis (review)

Abstract

and history in Chicago and determine if the social trajectories of these groups took similar or different directions. For example, did Irish gangs lose a foothold in organized crime because they were absorbed more completely in the Chicago machine politics? Or did the Italian gangs become more powerful as criminal organizations because they were by and large excluded from this more direct access to power and money? Kraus does not provide an in-depth comparison along these lines, though he hints at several lines of inquiry. And he does not take us very far into a comparative discussion of Jewish culture or socioeconomic factors that would prompt the rise of Jewish gangsters in particular compared with the social experiences of Italians or the Irish. However, this was not Kraus’s intention. He wants to tell a more focused story of the Jewish gangster in Chicago. This he does with great detail, insight, and perspective. The Kosher Capones fills in a missing gap in the ongoing challenge to explain the incredible, century-long institutionalization of organized crime in Chicago.