Features
New book looks at the fight by law-abiding Jews to rein in the New York Jewish underworld in early 20th century
The Incorruptibles: A True Story of Kingpins, Crime Busters, and the Birth of the American Underworld
Reviewed by BERNIE BELLAN For those readers who can remember the story of “The Untouchables,” the crime-fighting unit led by Elliot Ness, which was established by the Bureau of Prohibition in the US in the 1930s, tales of shoot-outs between courageous crime-fighting “good guys” and villainous underworld bootleggers and other assorted criminals would probably be thought of as something that wouldn’t have its origin in a Jewish-led crime-fighting unit established several years earlier.
But, would you believe that not too many years before the often bloody events that were depicted in “The Untouchables” came to pass there was another organization in New York City – led by Jewish crime fighters at that time, which had a somewhat tacit affiliation with the New York City Police Department, and whose purpose was to wage war on Jewish criminals on New York’s East Side? That organization was known as “The Incorruptibles” and the story how it came to be created is told in a fascinating new book, titled “The Incorruptibles: A True Story of Kingpins, Crime Busters, and the Birth of the American Underworld,” written by a New York crime reporter by the name of Dan Slater.
As someone who has long had a fascination with shady Jewish characters, I’ve come to realize over the years that a rollicking good story of a Jewish mobster, such as the close friendship a former Winnipegger by the name of Al Smiley had with the notorious Bugsy Siegel, about which Martin Zeilig wrote for The Jewish Post & News in March 2017, resonates with readers in ways that stories about more righteous Jews don’t.
While Martin’s story about Al Smiley was by no means the first story we’ve ever had about Jewish mobsters, a quick search of our online archive would lead you to numerous stories about Jewish gangsters and other assorted criminals.
In the summer of 2023 we ran two stories in relatively rapid succession that elicited a higher than usual amount of interest from readers. One was my review of a book called “Jukebox Empire,” about someone by the name of Wilf Rabin, who actually grew up in Morden, Manitoba. The other story was about bootlegger Bill Wolchock, written by Bill Redekopp, and which appeared in our 2023 Rosh Hashanah edition. Later, when I posted that story to our website it received so many views that I’ve returned it to our home page twice since. (You can now read that story if you missed it by reading it here: “Booze, Glorious Booze”
All this serves as a preamble to my review of “The Incorruptibles.” I have to couch what I’m about to write with an admission: As a youngster growing up in a sheltered environment, and attending the Talmud Torah, where all we were ever told about was Jewish “heroes,” and the only villains were Jews who didn’t lead properly observant lives, reading “The Incorruptibles” came as a real shock to my conception of how much Jews could be associated with the most sordid type of criminal activity.
It’s one thing to realize that many Jews were involved with bootlegging – something that has developed an almost romantic connotation over the years through books, movies and television programs, but to learn that in the latter part of the 19th century Jews in New York were in control of that city’s: prostitution (and most prostitutes were Jewish!); drugs (however, with the understanding that drugs, including heroin and cocaine, were legally available in the U.S. until 1907 and could be readily purchased in pharmacies); gambling; and protection rackets – does come as somewhat of a shock to a sheltered Winnipeg Jew.
Dan Slater’s depiction of life in New York City at the turn of the 20th century is unremittingly harrowing. For the first part of the 20th century the lower East Side of New York was the most densely populated area on Earth. Housing conditions were horrible and the hundreds of thousands of new immigrants arriving yearly – beginning in the 1870s, from what was known as the Pale of Settlement in Eastern Europe – fleeing persecution and pogroms, found themselves being shunted into unspeakably barbaric working conditions in lower East Side factories, predominantly garment factories – owned by fellow Jews. (The author actually spends a considerable amount of time explaining how exactly the Pale of Settlement came into being and how sudden and incredibly violent wholesale persecution of hundreds of thousands of Jews could happen almost overnight – with the death of a particular czar, for instance.)
It was amidst this churning cesspool of a city that Jewish criminal activity of all sorts ran rampant. Two images from “The Incorruptibles” in particular haunted me. One was Slater’s explanation how so many young Russian Jewish women – most in their early or mid-teens, and only recently arrived in New York, were forced into prostitution. Many of these young women would go to a dance – looking to find some relief from the slave-like conditions that permeated the factories in which they worked. While at the dance, they would be approached by a young Jewish man who would offer them a drink. These guys, known in the colloquial as “Alphonses,” or, in Yiddish, as “schimchas,” would lace the girls’ drinks with drugs (a common occurrence to this day) and take the girls home, where they would rape them. But – now defiled, the girl could not possibly return to her family home out of shame; thus, tens of thousands of young Jewish women were forced into prostitution.
The other image that haunts me was the widespread practice of “horse poisoning.” Protection rackets have probably been around from time immemorial, but in this particular incarnation, criminals would confront business owners with a choice: Pay for “protection” or see your means of transportation (and remember, this was at a time when a horse-drawn buggy or carriage was the principal means of transportation) poisoned.
(There is actually a photo in “The Incorruptibles” of a horse lying dead on a New York street after it had been poisoned. Apparently it happened on a regular basis to the point where it didn’t draw much attention.)
While the book chronicles one sordid story after another so that the reader can understand just how tough life was on the lower East Side – often with reference to the colourful names of some of the most famous Jewish thugs who terrorized their fellow Jews, such as “Bald Jack Rose” or “Big Jack Zelig” (no relation to Martin Zelig – I checked), the biggest mobster of them all was the legendary Arnold Rothstein.
Rothstein is undoubtedly most famous for reputedly having fixed the 1919 World Series by bribing eight members of the Chicago White Sox, the overwhelming favourite to defeat the Cincinnati Reds, to throw the series. (It has never been proven absolutely conclusively that Rothstein did that, but as “The Incorruptibles” explains, the evidence points overwhelmingly in his direction.)
Rothstein was the kind of gambler who could lose $350,000 in a single night of playing poker – and not worry about it.
Here is an example of Slater’s ability to describe a character, when he sums up Arnold Rothstein: “Picture in one individual a sentimental and tender lover, a genial and humorous companion, a charitable giver, a loyal friend—and—a wholesale drug dealer, a crooked sports fixer, a welching gambler, a stolen securities fence, a rum-ring mastermind, a corrupter of police, a grafter through politics, a gunman, a judge-briber, a jury-tamperer, a blackmailer, a pool shark, a swindler.”
But, up against the villains of “The Incorruptibles,” Slater also depicts the stories of two very talented – and brave, young Jewish men, who were willing to challenge the criminal class: A lawyer by the name of Harry Newburger and Abe Shoenfeld, the son of a well-known New York reformer by the name of Mayer Shoenfeld.
As Slater explains, it was only when members of New York’s largely German-Jewish upper class began to take note of the horrid conditions in which the vast majority of the Eastern European Jews who had recently immigrated to America were living did an impetus to try and change things develop. Two men, Jacob Schiff (who is described as the J.P. Morgan of his day in terms of his vast wealth), and Felix Warburg, together with the rabbi of the leading temple of its day, Rabbi Judah Magnes of Temple Immanu-El, organized a group known as the “Kehilah.”
The Kehilah mandated Newburger and Shoenfeld to do whatever they deemed necessary to begin cleaning up the lower East Side. Of course, given how corrupt New York officials were at the time – under the control of the notorious Tammany Hall, led by “Big Jim Sullivan,” most of the New York City Police Department was also thoroughly under the control of criminals, which made the challenge set out for Newburger and Shoenfeld all the more difficult.
The book describes, sometimes in painful detail, the difficulties faced by the group assembled by Newburger and Shoenfeld, known, naturally, as “The Incorruptibles.” They weren’t above busting heads themselves, it turns out.
Again, one of the more interesting aspects of history to emerge from this book is that men would often switch sides at the drop of a hat – to go from violently attacking one particular group – at the behest of this or that mobster, to attacking the same group they were supposed to be defending the next day.
As has already been noted, the garment trade played a pivotal role in the development of New York City into becoming not only a magnet for immigrants, it also also played a prominent role in New York’s becoming the vast economic powerhouse that it is today. Slater notes that, at one point, 80 percent of all garments produced in the U.S. came from the lower East Side.
As workers began to organize themselves into unions, garment factory owners hired thugs, known as “shtarkers” (strong men) to beat up workers, occasionally to kill union organizers. In time though, the tide began to turn and, as unions gathered strength, the same tactics of violence and intimidation that had been used against workers began to be employed by unions – with workers who dared to cross picket lines (known colloquially as “scabs”) often being on the receiving end of that violence, occasionally ending with them being killed.
Newburger and Shoenfeld were thrust into the midst of this turmoil, trying to bring some peace to the labour disputes. Ironically, Mayer Shoenfeld (Abe’s father) was a longtime advocate for workers’ rights, but he would not talk to his son, who tried to straddle both worlds – of employers and employees.
“The Incorruptibles” describes the many battles fought to rein in the gambling, prostitution, protection rackets, and what became the illegal drug trade that were part and parcel of life on New York’s East Side. As the years went by, the Jewish dominance of the New York underworld gave way to the ascendance of the Italian mob. (Slater also acknowledges the roles that other groups also played in New York criminal activity, including the Irish), but his main focus is on Jewish criminals.
“The Incorruptibles” is a long and detailed book, drawing upon a great many different sources, and at times, the proliferation of names entering the scene can be more than a little confusing. But, for anyone who has an interest in reading something that peels back the layers of a very disturbing aspect of Jewish history that might not fit all that well with the notion of Jewish righteousness, then “The Incorruptibles” might be of interest.
“The Incorruptibles: A True Story of Kingpins, Crime Busters, and the Birth of the American Underworld”
By Dan Slater
432 pages
Published by Little, Brown and Company, 2024
Features
“Jerusalemites” – Photographer Sharon Gabay talks about his new book in a spectacular photo essay
By JOANNE PALMER (reprinted with permission from the New Jersey Jewish News and the Jewish Standard) If every person is a world, as our tradition tells us, then a city is filled with so many worlds that it’s impossible to imagine all those rubbing-together universes.
That’s particularly true of Jerusalem, one of the world’s oldest cities, at just about 5,000 years old, give or take; a recent demographic study, done in 2026, estimates its population at around 1,181,760. It has grown remarkably quickly; maybe people are drawn by its ancient, stony beauty, or by the history and other-worldliness that shimmers around it, or by the vibrant, modern cacophony of its diverse residents.
For the last 15 years, Sharon Gabay, a highly successful professional photographer whose bread-and-butter is stunning headshots, party pictures, and portraits of politicians and other social and legal strivers, has wandered through the city, just looking and taking pictures. He’s a 15th-generation Yerushalmi, and although now he lives in the Judean hills, in Moshav Nes Harim, near Ein Kerem and Beit Shemesh, he goes to Jerusalem every week to photograph what he sees.
He’s published six books of photography about Jerusalem. All are both beautiful and emotional. The most recent of them, “Jerusalemites,” is the newest and perhaps the most emotional, created with love, gestated in fear, and now born into a world that perhaps surprisingly radiates with hope.
Okay. What could that possibly mean?
It means that on October 11, 2023, Mr. Gabay went to Kfar Aza. “Everybody who could do anything did something, and I wanted to do something too,” he said. Some kind of response to the barbarism and terror and grief of the Hamas attack. Kfar Aza, one of the southernmost kibbutzim in Israel, was one of the hardest hit. “Because I am a documentary photographer, I asked to join Zaka,” Israel’s emergency response, rescue, and recovery nonprofit organization, “the first time they went in. I went in with them.
“I took pictures. I had two exhibitions using these pictures” — one of them “Holocaust in the Village,” is online — “but it hurt my mind. It was a trauma for me. And I didn’t touch my camera for two years. I just stayed in my studio in Nes Harim, taking psychiatry pills and trying to forget what I saw.
“And during this time I decided to make this book. I sat on it for two years, just learning how to do it effectively.
“There are almost no words in this book. Only pictures. And this is the message: We all live together 99 percent of the time. What the world sees about Jerusalem in the news is what happens maybe three or four percent of the time. All the rest of the time, all 99 percent of the people, other people around the world don’t know about. So I decided to make this book.
“The little text that I do have is in three languages — Hebrew, English, and Arabic. The languages spoken by the people of Jerusalem.”
The small number of Hebrew words in the text are written in a font created from the handwriting of Aner Shapira, who was 22 when he went to the Nova music festival in southern Israel on Simchat Torah — October 7, 2023. He took cover in a shelter with a group of other young Israelis, and he saved many of their lives by throwing seven explosive grenades that Hamas operatives threw into the shelter back out at the terrorists. The eighth exploded in his hand and killed him.
When Aner died, “he left behind a lot of songs that he wrote. They took his handwriting and made a font of it, and I chose to use it for the text.
“He was a Yerushalmi and he loved the city. He wrote about the diversity inside the city, and how you can see everything there. So I decided to put the text in his handwriting as a memorial to him.
When he began to make the book, Mr. Gabay had to look through the enormous archive he’d created. For 15 years he’s roamed the city. His camera is small, old, and unthreatening, a beaten-up Fuji with a visible crack on the case. He takes pictures unobtrusively, he said. He doesn’t ask permission. He just shoots. Usually people don’t even know they’ve been photographed. Sometimes they come across pictures of themselves in his work, and sometimes they email or message him, asking for a copy. Of course, he said, he always sends one.
Culling his vast collection of images was not easy, Mr. Gabay said. Putting it together “made me go out on the streets again.” The vast majority of the photos in the book were taken before October 7, but he took some later, to fill in logical gaps. Even now, with the book finished, he wanders the city’s streets one day every week, camera in hand.
As he prepared the book, he winnowed the vast library of images to 2,000, and from there he whittled it down to 300. For that first cull, “I went through them one by one, me and my cat, hiding from the missiles when they came in, because this is the Middle East. I did it day by day by day by day, until I managed to take it from one and a half million to 2,000.”
The second selection process “was much easier, because by then I knew how I wanted to do it. It is not a random collection of pictures. It is a story, from beginning to end; it is the long story of a city. So there is always a connection from each picture to the picture before and the picture after. But this took a long time.”
“The book turned out to be very successful. I sold all the copies before I launched it. One museum in Israel took 1,000 copies. It got to Herzog”— Israeli President Isaac Herzog —“and Huckabee” — Mike Huckabee is the U.S. ambassador to Israel — “and they both wrote letters about the book.
“Now I am working on the second edition. I want to distribute it to all the Jewish communities and Christian communities and Muslim communities that don’t hate us. There are no politics in this book. It is just people. The background to the pictures is all black because the only light we have in Jerusalem is the people.”
His message, Mr. Gabay said, is that “Jerusalem is not an apartheid city. Everyone lives here.
“I was raised in Jerusalem,” he said. “When we were little, my friends and I went to the Muslim quarter. Nothing happened. Once in a while there’d be some trouble, but most of the time we lived together with no trouble. My family has been here for more than 300 years. I have a picture of my great-great-grandpa in the Old City of Jerusalem. We are connected to the city, all my family is, and we really love it.
“Jerusalem should have tourists the way Vatican City does. People don’t come to Jerusalem.” His attempt to cure that problem is to show the city’s glories on social media. “I have more than 100,000 followers, and they are from all over the world,” he said. “I have Iranian followers and Saudi followers. Suddenly they see the city and they are surprised. They want to come to visit. They all of a sudden see that if they come here, they won’t be arrested because they are Muslim.
“I want to dedicate my work to telling the truth about Jerusalem.”
Mr. Gabay still takes pictures in Jerusalem because “I always go out to see if there is something new, because there is always something new to take pictures of in Jerusalem.”
He also takes pictures of politicians, and that’s a particularly busy area now because of the Israeli election set for October 27. “Today I had a member of the Knesset from Ram, the Muslim party. Mansour Abbas’s party. They want to participate in Israeli politics. They say, ‘We have a life here, and we want to live.’ And on the other side, I did a lot of people from the government we have now. Which, you know, is not the best government we’ve ever had.
“I tell them to their faces what I’m thinking. They know me. They know that I have a big mouth, and that I never, ever lie. So every politician from every side, even the one who was here today, sees the book. And I’ve never had anyone ever say that it’s one-sided or that it doesn’t tell the truth. It’s about all the tribes of Israel.
“I’ve put all my knowledge about Jerusalem and its people in the book, and I try to bring in exactly what happens in real life. I don’t try to stage anything. I am a viewer. I come. I see. I take a picture, and I save it. And people can see what life is like in Jerusalem.
Mr. Gabay also spends a great deal of time doing pro bono work. He takes photos for “At Eye Level,” a nonprofit that works with people with autism. His website showcases much of who he is and what he does; readers can learn more about his book here.
He has a traveling exhibit for the book; the photos can be printed locally so there are no shipping or customs costs, and he often comes to speak in the United States, talking about “Jerusalem and its unique human diversity.
“This book, ‘Jerusalemites,’ is about hope,” he said. “It tells people around the world that what you know about Jerusalem isn’t right. We live together, day by day, all of us, everyone. Yes, we have been at war for three years, but Jerusalem is still vibrating.
“Jerusalem is a hope that if you let people just live, they can live together, and they can make it a great city.”
Features
Musings from Dizengoff Street – by Bruce Brown (updated Sept. 10)
(Posted Sept 10)Honey cakes. Honey cakes. Honey cakes. It’s that time of year. Yummy! Here comes Rosh HaShana 5787. And its…. You guessed it. Honey cake season. That light brown loaf our baba used to make. Starting a few weeks before Rosh HaShana and extending through Yom Kippur – a first bite to break the fast and usher in a sweet year- honey cakes are found throughout the country. The familiar sight of the ready-made, pre-packaged, ‘assembly-line’ honey cakes wrapped in cheap cellophane found in Grocery stores. The freshly baked honey cakes adorning window displays at local bakeries. The exorbitantly priced, gourmet honey cake desserts offered at fancy Tel Aviv restaurants. And of course, honey cakes festooning the festive, colorful, Rosh Hashana dinner tables across Israel. I bake my own honey cake which is pretty good. My wife and kids would beg to differ. But these slightly glazed honey cakes -of my own culinary, shtetl inspired creation- are heartedly enjoyed by me as I gain several honey cake induced pounds. Shana tova!
(Posted Sept. 8) Hoarding. A combination of my own little wartime PTSD and some recent headlines about Iran trying to coordinate a multifront attack (is that capability still there?!) and October 7 like rumblings from the West Bank (or Judea & Samaria, depending if you wear a kippa and if its knitted and if it tilts to this side or that side -that’s a shtetl insider joke). I digress and Yikes! And we just had a nation-wide drill of the IDF’s top-level headquarters preparedness for such scenarios. Double Yikes! So ya. I’m always checking and rechecking that we have way more than enough of some things. The thought of entering another prolonged war and some stuff no longer available, even for a short time, scares the bejeebers out of me. Just writing about it triggers the ‘go and buy’ dopamine hit. Medications. Toilet paper. Bottled water. Canned goods. Also worried about the country running out of bullets. But I can’t hoard those.
(Posted Sept. 5) An open letter to the zany and zealous mouthpieces of those delightful, anti-Israel protests held regularly in Toronto. In the heavily Jewish Bathurst & Sheppard area no less. Fear and harassment in the community? Not by the hairs of our chinny chin chins.
Dear Friends.
Are you serious.
Sincerely,
Bruce Brown, a Zionist who does not rape children. Who does not murder children. Who does not eat children. And, get this, who lives in Israel.
(Ed. note: To better understand what Bruce is talking about, go to this story on our website: Police open hate-crime investigation)
(Posted Sept. 1) Can you be more of an international embarrassment and liability? Yes talking about Israeli’s antagonist extraordinaire and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
Declaring that Israel should kill ’30-40 Gazans a day’. Seriously?!?! His actual statement may have been more refined and qualified. But it doesn’t really make a difference. That’s the takeaway. Like whose side is he on anyway. Talk about giving our detractors ammunition to delegitimize our little shtetl. Hello?!?!
And a few days later. Showing off in front of a gallows site under construction at a high security prison. Seriously?!?! The death penalty for terrorists. Right or not – I think the former. But like can you give us reason to be compared to an extremist state. That’s the takeaway. Like whose side is he on anyway. Talk about giving our detractors ammunition to delegitimize our little shtetl. Hello?!?!
Serenity now!
(Posted August 28) Kites. Color. Childhood. Hamas and friends should watch Mary Poppins with the final kite flying scene. Remember that song, Let’s Go Fly A Kite. Ya, I know. Somewhat ethnocentric. But still…. I have fond memories of flying kites with my kids. Down the Mediterranean shoreline in Tel Aviv. At the Ness Tziona kite flying festival. Along the green grounds of the Weizmann Institute. Laughing and running. Looking to the sky with awe. Multi-shades and fancy. Kites.
With your fist ‘olding tight
To the string of your kite
…oh, oh, oh!
Lets go fly a kite
Kites. Fun. Laughter. Innocence.
Kites. Not an instrument of war.
(Posted August 25) How principled can you be! Ireland -one of the most anti-Israel and foggiest countries in the EU- insisted that its government’s new, 60$M executive jet NOT be equipped with Elbit’s FalconEye navigation system, which helps pilots navigate in fog -how ironic- and other difficult weather conditions. Without this unique system the plane must be diverted to alternative airports. This a part of the government’s official boycott of Israeli goods. So good luck to Prime Minister Michael Martin in landing his aircraft in Dublin.
And despite some negative sentiment towards everything Israel, Elbit achieved over 32$B in backorders with Europe driving much of its export growth. On a more personal muse. The morning after Iran’s first attack on Israel (April 13 2024), I woke up not with fear and panic. Well. Okay. Some of that. But also great excitement regarding an investment opportunity which developed overnight. Actually it was the wife’s suggestion. After Israel successfully intercepted over three hundred missiles and drones – showcasing the strength of Israel’s defense industry- my wife had a eureka moment. What better public relations for Israel’s defense industry. Let’s buy stock in Elbit, a key player in that ecosystem. We did. And about eighteen months later we cashed in. With about 150% profit. This is not an endorsement to buy… blah, blah, blah….
Again. Good luck to Prime Minister Martin.
(Posted August 21) Sometimes musings are terribly sad. But should be shared.
Happy belated birthday beautiful Ariel. Turned seven on August 5th. Thought about him and his younger brother Kfir and mother Shiri. All murdered by Hamas shortly after their unbelievable and surreal abduction on Oct 7 2023.
As I was driving home today. “I Thank You Child” by Zakk Wylde shuffled onto my Spotify. Always kills me, this song. It was played by Yarden, the father who himself was held hostage, at the funeral of his family. For Ariel and Kfir. The lyrics chilling. The frequent drum rolls haunting.
It was you who made living all worth the while
Oh, I thank you, my child
Comfort in your eyes
For the warmth inside your smile
Faith’s done gone astray
It was you who made living all the while
All my fears repressed
Oh lovin’ you child it’s the best
This song. Written almost thirty years ago. Finds its devastating meaning today. With the Bibas family tragedy.
How.
Listen to the song here:
(Posted August 18, 2026) And the beat goes on in the strait. A bit quieter lately although may be heating up again with the 60day ‘ceasefire’ officially expired. And while Iran occasionally lashed out over the last two months, they did not attack Israel. How do you spell deterrence. According to my Yiddisha mama, its spelled ‘Pftt. Pftt. Pftt‘.
(August 14, 2026) Despite three years of varying degrees of warfare. Moody’s biannual report of the Israeli economy was quite positive. Basically, the report saw no pressures on Israel’s credit rating. While the macro data remains strong, Israel still faces a complex geopolitical situation further complicated by upcoming elections (we pondered about how crazy that is in an earlier muse). And Israeli’s inflation rate for the first half of 2026 fell to a historic five year low of 1.2% (vs Canada’s 2.6%). As for my own pocketbook. Haven’t had an infamous Israeli bank overdraft in years. So all is fine.
If that’s not enough economic voodoo talk for one musing. According to one famous barometer. Israel moved to second place in the Economist’s Big Mac Index. Introduced in 1986, this tasty indicator compares the purchasing power parity across countries by measuring the price of a McDonald’s Big Mac -which most can relate to- against the benchmark U.S. burger. So while a Big Mac in the U.S. costs $6.22. In Israel it costs $7.67, the second most expensive place to buy the hamburger in the world, Switzerland being the most pricey at a whopping (no reference to Wendy’s) $9.04. While the cheapest Big Mac can be enjoyed in Indonesia at only $2.38. Canada ranked 22nd of the fifty-four countries considered, at $5.85. Parity. Smarity. I’m going for my Big Mac fix. Just after I finish writing this muse….
(August 11, 2026) Bravo Boy George. We certainly will dance again! And what better way than with his new reggae tune. Now Boy George is dealing with a hostile backlash against his just stand for Israel. Having to withdraw from London’s East End production of Jesus Christ Superstar where he was going to play – guess it. King Herod. Never a big Culture Club fan, but I am anyway -as a sign of support- going to download his greatest hits to my Spotify library. And hoping to have a chance to buy a concert ticket should Boy George perform in Israel. Kind of reminds me of Bob Dylan’s 1983 song Neighborhood Bully. Also in defense of Israel. I’m going to download that song as well. Although don’t think he was hounded the way Boy George is now. Sign of the times I guess.
+++++
Coming clean. I sometimes find myself chanting, to no one in particular, that snappy little ditty ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’ Now why can’t we come up with something as catchy. With such an impressive gene pool of great Jewish songwriters. George Gershwin. Irving Berlin. Burt Bacharach. Carole King. Neil Diamond. Leanard Choen. Paul Simon. Gene Simmons, Amy Winehouse. Bob Dylan. And yes, even the Buddhist Boy George. And still… gurnish! No wonder we’re losing the global PR battle
(August 8, 2026) Outside Basimta Café in Central Jerusalem. Love the red shirt against a tiny sea of black. Not sure I am shrugging because of the ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat or the lack of an ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat. For the last six weeks Israeli headlines shouted about the cafe chaos. With the ultra-religious blocking entrances and storming the café. While shouting ‘Shabbos! Shabbos!’ Upsetting the secular amongst us just wanting to enjoy our Saturday iced matchas. So the wife and I thought we would check it out. And. Yes. Buy something to support the business. Uproar. Not. Blocked entrances. Not. Storming the café. Not. Albeit there were police barriers separating the devout protesters from the coffee drinkers. The protesters being just a few dozen black clad, pious Jews. Mostly teenagers. And yes. Shouting ‘Shabbos! Shabbos!’ Certainly underwhelming in its reported mayhem. Reminds me of the famous saying misattributed to Mark Twain – “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do, you’re misinformed.” But I did enjoy my iced matcha.
(August 6, 2026) Here we go again. Another round of forever negotiations. As someone who negotiates for a living. The way things are going in the straits. If I had to recommend a book on the subject to a new hire. Between The Art of the Deal, A Presidential Edition by Donald J. Trump or The Real Art of the Deal by the Mullahs of Iran with a special forward by the IRGC. Well. I would choose the latter.
(August 3) Bravo Yoav Segalovitz, Liberal Yesh Atid MK and Monsour Abbas, United Arab Ra’am MK and party head. For breaking a glass ceiling where a Jewish lawmaker joins an Arab political party. No less a political earthquake in my little shtetl. Which can significantly impact coalition block arithmetic and posturing and strategy in the upcoming elections. Now Ra’am can be considered a legitimate ‘Zionist’ partner when forming coalition blocks and potentially pushing the ‘center left/right’ party over the 60 seat majority threshold. In our crazy parliamentary democracy defined by a multi-party (about fourteen!!), proportional representation system. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Israel’s proportional representation model of governance is the best parliamentary democracy system except for all other forms of working democracies. Stay tuned for more amateurish political musings as we move towards Israel’s 26th national election – five of them held since 2019.
(August 1) Although both sides say they are open to diplomacy. Neither really trusts the other. And American military action, or its threat, continues. I read headlines in the middle of the night -it’s a nervous habit lately– that the Dynamic Duo of Trump and Netanyahu may again strike in unison. Possibly this weekend. Yikes! Prompting me, at 2:30 AM, to dash around the house stocking my safe room. Bottled water. Canned food. Medicines. Documents. The beat goes on….
If it’s crazy here. It’s insane in Italy. With a recent online ‘Jew Hunt’ in the Milan area. Before being removed, the digital forms urged reportings of Israelis and Italian Jews staying in local hotels. The infamous Global Sumud Movement -yes, the one coordinating ‘peace and humanitarian’ flotillas to Gaza- was somehow connected. Although they deny involvement?! This deranged decree was looking to identify Zionist tourism and Zionist neo-colonization in Italy. I’ll stick with stocking the saferoom.
Then there’s New York Mayor Mamdani, a Global Sumud Movement supporter, threatening to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu if he comes to New York. But since discovered he has no legal right for such a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic antic. Maybe Mandami should be arrested! Or at least impeached. For being a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic mayor.
Here’s a post Bruce sent us Friday, July 31:
WARTIME MUSINGS
Should credible threats against FLOTUS and ‘FSOTUS’ (first son..) not be justification to attack first.
As for yesterday’s summit. Netanyahu really can’t win. Explainer. If Trump now attacks without victory its ’cause of Netanyahu. If Trump now attacks with victory its ’cause of Trump. And, in Israel, if Trump doesn’t attack -victory or not- Netanyahu failed in his eighth meeting with Trump. And if Trump does attack -victory or not- half the country will vilify Bibi anyway. Missing a permutation?
Ya. I know. Kinda’ need a definition of victory for that musing to work.
And here in my little shtetle. We go to sleep unsure if there will be a code red in the middle of the night. And if not. We wake up thinking it will be tonight. How do you define stress?
Seemed like an appropriate way to end this musing.
Bruce Brown is a former Winnipegger who made aliyah to Israel over 35 years ago. Bruce first began writing for us – in his own inimitable style, in 2012, during what was known as “Operation Pillar of Defense.” His occasional musings on aspects of life in Israel that were far from what you’d typically read in other reports from Israel were hugely popular – both in the print Jewish Post & News and on this website.
We’re now glad to report that Bruce is back writing for us – this time on a regular basis. We will post Bruce’s reports as they arrive – with the date of each post at the beginning of that post.
Here’s some information about Bruce – and awards he’s received for his writing:
Bruce Brown. Canadian born. Now living in Israel (for a long time). Bruce works in Israel’s hi-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night. He received the American Jewish Press Association’s award for writing excellence in 2019 and 2025. And wrote the1998 satire, “An Israeli is….”. Bruce’s visuals are AI-assisted and created with ChatGPT under his inimitable visual concept and creative direction. Bruce’s musings are political, social, economic and personal. With lots of biting, contrarian, sardonic, irreverent and mischievous insights.
Features
Winnipeg’s Jewish Community and the Question of Online Casino Bonuses: What Manitoba Players Should Know
A reader wrote in last month asking a simple question: is it legal to play online casino games in Manitoba, and if so, what’s actually a fair deal? It’s the kind of practical, money-conscious question this paper’s readers tend to ask before spending anything, the same instinct that shapes how the community shops, budgets for the High Holidays, or decides which shul renovation appeal to support. Manitoba’s online gambling landscape has changed enough in the last few years that the old assumptions no longer hold, and it’s worth walking through what’s actually there now.
Manitoba’s Online Casino Landscape in 2026
Manitoba doesn’t have an open, competitive online casino market the way Ontario does. Since April 2022, Ontario has allowed private operators to apply for licences and compete for players directly. Manitoba still runs a single-operator model: Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries (MLL), the Crown corporation that also runs the province’s Liquor Marts and lottery products, operates the one legal online casino for Manitoba residents, PlayNow.com. That’s the whole regulated market in this province. Outside that single option, Manitobans who search for online casinos will find dozens of sites willing to take their money and their information, a pattern this paper’s own Local/Canadian News coverage has tracked as provinces across the country adjust their approach to regulated gambling. Some are licensed elsewhere, Malta, Curaçao, the UK, and operate in a legal grey zone for Canadian players; enforcement against them has been inconsistent for years. None of them answers to Manitoba’s regulator, and none of them contributes a dollar back to this province.
How Casino Welcome Bonuses Are Structured and Regulated
A welcome bonus is usually presented as free money: deposit $50, get $50 in bonus funds, sometimes with free spins attached. What matters is the fine print attached to it. Wagering requirements determine how many times you must play through the bonus amount before you can withdraw any winnings; a 30x requirement on a $50 bonus means $1,500 in total wagering before that money is really yours. Game weighting matters too: slots typically count 100% toward that requirement, table games often count 10% or less, which punishes anyone who prefers blackjack over slot spins. Time limits, usually 7 to 30 days, and maximum bet sizes while a bonus is active, round out the list of terms most players skip past. On PlayNow.com, these terms are published in plain language and reviewed by a provincial Crown corporation with community accountability baked into its mandate, the same mandate that funds Manitoba’s healthcare and education budgets. That’s a meaningfully different relationship than the one an offshore site has with a Manitoba customer.
The Difference Between Licensed Canadian Operators and Offshore Alternatives
This is where the practical stakes are highest. A licensed Canadian platform is subject to specific consumer protections: verified game fairness, dispute resolution through a regulator you can actually reach, and deposit-limit tools that work. An offshore operator answers to a foreign licensing body, if it answers to anyone at all. Winnipeggers who’ve had a withdrawal disputed by an offshore casino know how limited the recourse actually is; there’s no Manitoba office to call and no local regulator with jurisdiction. Across the country, players comparing regulated options increasingly start by checking a best casino bonus Canada comparison rather than relying on whichever ad appears first. It’s a reasonable way to sort a legitimate Canadian-licensed platform from an offshore look-alike before depositing anything.
Responsible Gambling Resources Available in Manitoba
This part matters more than the bonus terms. MLL runs Informed Gambling, its dedicated responsible-gambling program, which includes deposit and time-limit tools, self-exclusion options, and educational material aimed at helping players recognize when a habit has become a problem before it becomes a crisis. Manitobans concerned about their own gambling, or a family member’s, can call the Manitoba Addictions Helpline, toll-free at 1-855-662-6605, for confidential support. Shared Health, formerly the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba, also provides professional counselling free of charge to anyone who needs it, regardless of ability to pay. For a community that has always taken care of its own, through the Chesed Shel Emes, through synagogue-run support networks, through the kind of quiet checking-in that happens after a funeral or a hard year, these resources are worth knowing before they’re needed, not after. Chasing a Canadian online casino bonus isn’t worth it if the wagering requirements are already causing strain. That’s a conversation worth having, honestly, inside families and inside the community, before it becomes a private one.
Where to Compare Current Casino Bonus Offers Across Licensed Platforms
None of this is an argument against playing. It’s an argument for playing somewhere accountable, with terms you understand, and for a modest amount you’ve already decided you can afford to lose. Manitoba’s single-operator model makes that comparison simpler than Ontario’s crowded market, but it also means doing the homework on wagering requirements and licensing status matters just as much, if not more, when there’s only one legal option and a long list of unregulated ones competing for the same click. Ask the question before depositing, not after; that’s the same advice this community gives about most things worth being careful with.
