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The Starker: Big Jack Zelig, the Becker-Rosenthal Case, and the Advent of the Jewish Gangster book cover

The Starker: Big Jack Zelig, the Becker-Rosenthal Case, and the Advent of the Jewish Gangster

by Rose Keefe
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SKU 9781581826029
Selig Harry Lefkowitz, alias Big Jack Zelig, was New York's first great gangster boss. Like many of his pre-Volstead contemporaries, his historic impact has been overshadowed by Al Capone and Murder Inc. He is listed in today's crime anthologies primarily because four members of the gang, along with corrupt cop Charles Becker, died in the electric chair for the July 1912 murder of gambler Herman Rosenthal. In New York City from 1908 to 1912, however, Zelig inspired admiration and fear, and he was synonymous with the word 'gangster.'
New York editor Herbert Bayard Swope recalled that The Starker (Yiddish for 'Big Boss'), "threw terror into the heart of the New York underworld like no one has before or since." Based on dozens of interviews and years of painstaking research, The Starker introduces readers to a story from New York's criminal past that is dazzling in its audacity and criminal in the success of the people responsible for the murders in covering up their own crimes.

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Book details

Author
Rose Keefe
Imprint
Cumberland House Publishing, an imprint of Turner Publishing Company
Published
Pages
320
Formats
Hardcover
Subjects
Biography & Autobiography › Criminals & Outlaws
True Crime › Organized Crime
Topics
Jewish gangsters · organized crime · New York City · criminal biography · early 20th century crime · political corruption · true crime · murder case
ISBN-13
9781581826029

About the author

ROSE KEEFE is a researcher and historian specializing in vintage American true crime and the author of three books on early American gangsters. Her recent books include The Starker: Big Jack Zelig, the Becker-Rosenthal Case, and the Advent of the Jewish Gangster, The Man Who Got Away: The Bugs Moran Story, and Guns and Roses: The Untold Story of Dean O'Banion, Chicago’s Big Shot Before Al Capone.

Keefe has been consulted as an expert on America’s criminal history by the History Channel and LucasFilm. Her books draw on primary sources including police and court records, FBI files, and interviews with surviving relatives and descendants of her subjects.

Rose lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

More books by Rose Keefe →

Format: Hardcover