From “Why Gangsters Who Broke Every Law Still Went to Services on Yom Kippur” in Tablet magazine:
When examining FBI files and interviewing old-time Jewish criminals and their relatives, I found that plenty of Jewish mobsters prayed in synagogue on Shabbat, observed Jewish holidays, maintained religious rituals, fasted on Yom Kippur, and attended Passover Seders…
The Jewish mobsters grew up in these traditional homes in Jewish neighborhoods that were infused with folk Judaism, such as New York’s Lower East Side, Chicago’s West Side, and Detroit’s East Side. And like many of their non-criminal peers, some of them continued these behavioral patterns into adulthood. Jewish ritual remained an indelible part of their identity, a part of who and what they were…
Another factor contributing to the paradox in these mens’ lives was their ability to separate what they did to earn a living—their “business” lives—and the way they behaved in their personal lives. Behaviorists refer to this as “compartmentalization”: being able to act one way in the private world and another way in the public sphere, even if the result was blatantly inconsistent behavior…
Later in life many of the Jewish mobsters strayed far from the traditions of their youth. But almost all of them received Jewish burials at their death. Despite the brutal and illegal nature of the lives they led, at their demise many of these underworld figures still remained tied to their families, their people, and the Jewish tradition.
