Author Mark Dapin. Photo: Ingrid Shakenovsky

LORIN BLUMENTHAL

FROM Australia to America, Jews are known to have had a hand in organised crime. In the United States, from the 1920s to the 1940s, the likes of Meyer Lansky, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, and Lepke Buchalter were part of a syndicate dubbed Murder Inc, which allegedly performed hundreds of contract killings on behalf of the American mafia.

In London there was Jack “Spot” Comer, who reportedly ran the East End protection rackets until the early 1950s and profited from illegal bookmaking.

Australia has its own collection of Jewish “gangsters”, one of whom Chopper Read claims as his best friend.

Jewish gangsters also feature in popular culture, including the 1980s epic crime film Once Upon a Time in America, the Coen Brother’s Miller’s Crossing, and El Doctorow’s gangster novel Billy Bathgate, later made into a movie of the same name.
Read the full story

Anti-Semitic graffiti. Photo: AJN file

NAOMI LEVIN

TOUGHER sentences for perpetrators of hate crimes are a step closer in Victoria after the Sentencing Advisory Council examined the issue. Led by Professor Arie Freiberg, the Sentencing Advisory Council recommended the Victorian Government legislate to increase sentences for crimes that are motivated by hatred or prejudice.

In its report, the Council said tougher sentences would not only punish the offender, but would also denounce the offender’s actions and “possibly deter other would-be offenders from committing crimes that are motivated by hatred or prejudice”.

Jewish parliamentarian Jennifer Huppert said the Council’s recommendation -– which came just over a month after the government announced plans for tougher hate crime sentences -– meant the change was a step closer to becoming law.

Read the full story

WASHINGTON — Several rabbis were arrested as part of a public corruption and international money-laundering investigation in New Jersey.

According to reports, among the 44 people arrested Thursday morning by the FBI along with the rabbis were the mayors of three New Jersey towns, a deputy mayor and a state assemblyman. They were to appear in federal court in Newark later in the day.

The money-laundering suspects were accused of moving “at least tens of millions of dollars through charitable, nonprofit entities controlled by rabbis in New York and New Jersey,” according to a release by acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra. Read the full story

PUNISHMENT FITTING THE CRIME?

FUNNY how when someone is down, the boots are on. I am not going to go down the path of why Justice Marcus Einfeld was given an over-the-top penalty for, let’s face it, what seems not such a horrendous crime. 

Heaven knows that people have received far less punishment for far more serious and vicious crimes. He should have known better? An example needs to be made of him? Ach! What rubbish! He is a human being with human weaknesses and what horrible crime did he commit that he has to go to jail? Read the full story