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‘Married to the Mob,’ but under a chuppah: A new memoir details a Jewish family’s crime ties
(New York Jewish Week) — The Geiks weren’t your typical Bronx working-class Jewish family.
One brother ran a mob-protected trucking company in Manhattan’s Garment District. Another brother, an NYPD detective, chauffeured organized crime couriers around the city with illicit cash. Their kid sister visited a Las Vegas casino where the tween was set up with a couple of slot machines in a private room.
And a close family friend was sent up the river for killing a notorious Jewish gangster.
Meet the family whose close ties to Jewish gangsters are chronicled in “Uncle Charlie Killed Dutch Schultz,” a memoir just published by Alan Geik.
Dutch Schultz was the mob name of Arthur Flegenheimer, the Jewish bootlegger and numbers racket kingpin who left this mortal coil in October 1935 at the Palace Chop House in Newark. The triggermen were two Jews, members of the organized crime group Murder Inc. Mendy Weiss and Charles “Bug” Workman, the Uncle Charlie of the memoir’s title, did the hit.
Workman, who reportedly killed more than 20 people before pleading guilty to the murder of Dutch Schultz, was not a blood relative of author Alan Geik. But Workman grew up with Geik’s father on the Lower East Side and was so close to the Geik family he was considered an uncle. The author was in his 20s when he first met Workman, after the hitman was released from a New Jersey prison in 1964.
“I would never think of calling him anything but Uncle Charlie,” said Geik, 80, a retired TV producer and radio host who lives in Las Vegas.
In addition to diving deep into Workman’s story, the book also explores how Jewish mobsters and their hangers-on fought antisemitism, beat up Nazis and helped a fledgling Israel acquire arms for its War of Independence.
“These were people, from the first generation of Jews in America, who fought back against antisemitism in the streets,” Geik said. “Their parents fled the pogroms of Eastern Europe. They were not going to let it happen again and they didn’t.”
Geik’s book joins a crowded shelf of histories and memoirs of the Jewish mob, including “But He Was Good to His Mother: The Lives and Crimes of Jewish Gangsters,” by Robert A. Rockaway, and “Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams,” by Rich Cohen. Like those books, Geik’s family history provides a sort of reverse image of typical Jewish immigrant stories: Instead of scrapping their way up from New York’s Jewish enclaves into retail and the professions, Geik’s family joined a criminal counterculture.
Alan Geik’s family’s close ties to Jewish gangsters are chronicled in a just-published memoir, “Uncle Charlie Killed Dutch Schultz.” (Sonador Publishing)
Books such as Geik’s “really put a personal experience to this whole world that we all know about, the world of New York mobsters,” said Larry Henry, author of a monthly column for the Mob Museum in Las Vegas. “The public’s appetite for mob stories is insatiable.”
“Uncle Charlie Killed Dutch Schultz” describes a tangled family tree ripe with, well, rotten apples. Geik’s father, Lou, was not actually in the mob but did reap benefits from his ties with organized crime, Alan concedes. Lou Geik was one of several individuals who delivered mob cash to Workman’s family over 23 years.
“Uncle Charlie felt indebted to my father,” said Geik.
The author’s father is cited as a source for many of the anecdotes included in the memoir. Geik said that while his father’s business relied on mob protection, Lou Geik didn’t have “that extra whatever-it-took to be a really hardened criminal” — a trait, he said, his own older brother Bernard also lacked.
“My brother always wanted to be a gangland figure,” said Alan Geik. “So, instead my brother became a policeman.”
An ultimately very corrupt policeman. Bernard Geik joined the force in 1962 and resigned in 1971 after serving in the notorious Special Investigative Unit, which, as depicted in the book and the motion picture “Prince of the City,” devolved into an extortion ring. After resigning from the NYPD, Bernard Geik was arrested for bribery and bribe-taking in 1974. He reportedly pleaded guilty but served no time.
The disgraced detective went to work at his father’s trucking company. According to the author, his brother was one of the detectives provided by a supervisor to drive their Uncle George and other mobsters around town when they were transporting mob money in New York.
Uncle George Gordon was a real uncle. Gordon is allegedly one of the gangsters the actor George Raft modeled himself after for his roles in 1930s and ’40s crime melodramas. For decades, beginning at a casino and speakeasy near the Hudson River in midtown Manhattan, Gordon had a big hand in organized crime’s gambling operations, supervising enterprises in Florida, the Midwest, Las Vegas and Havana.
Alan Geik isn’t the only keeper of his family’s convoluted story. His sister Iris has her own memories of growing up mob-adjacent, such as when she and her parents were Gordon’s guests at the Stardust Hotel in Vegas when the mob was running its casino and skimming cash from the profits. Gordon wanted Lou Geik to work there.
According to Iris, Gordon posted a guard outside a private room in which she had been ensconced with a couple of slot machines. The 13-year-old was “mesmerized” by the slot machines. Her mother was initially unaware of what was going on.
“Uncle Charlie” Workman, seen in 1941, pled guilty to the 1935 murder of mobster Dutch Schultz and was given a life sentence. (NYPD)
“I was having a blast,” Iris Geik said. “I’ll never forget when the door flung open and my itty-bitty mother came in with a big guard behind her. She immediately made me stop [playing with the slot machine] and give back the money I had won.”
Iris Geik, now a privacy lawyer in the Boston area, has written hundreds of pages of her own memoir about the wives and girlfriends of the Jewish gangsters, tentatively titled, “The View From the Women’s Table.”
“Their lives were complex but they were also heimische Jewish women,” she said, using the Yiddish word for cozy and familiar. She and her father eloped because they were a mixed couple: Her mother Reba was a Sephardic Jew and her father was Ashkenazi.
Geik remembered that as a child she noticed a newspaper article about a family friend being arrested. She said, “Mom! Mom! Look, we’re famous.” To which her mother replied, “That’s infamous, dear.”
Geik said that on several occasions her mother observed: “There are no second-generation Jewish mobsters. Jews don’t make gangsters out of their children.”
Reba Geik had been involved in caring for two of Iris’ aunts who lived in Brooklyn while they were dying. Those acts of kindness had a profound impact on Uncle George, the casino supervisor.
After the aunts passed away, Gordon always stood when Reba entered a room, Iris said. “My mother was very honored by that because he was such a big shot.”
Throughout her life, Reba Geik remained close to Sylvia Lorber, a friend from her teenage years. Lorber was the only mob mistress her mother would spend time with, said Iris. Lorber was the paramour of two Jewish gangsters: Benny Kassop, the brother of Murder, Inc. gunman Sammy Kassop, and Sam “Red” Levine, an observant Jew who wore a kippah under his fedora. Levine won the affection of Lorber while the Kassop brothers were in Sing Sing, the maximum-security prison in Ossining, New York.
“Sylvia was a hell of a lot of fun but my mother worried about her,” Iris said. “Sylvia told me her stories, which were kind of glamorous when she was young but sad when she was older.” After spending 20 years with Levine, Lorber couldn’t attend his funeral. Sylvia Lorber stopped talking to Reba Geik in her last years.
Jewish gangsters do, on occasion, display some altruism in Alan Geik’s memoir. Take Moe Dalitz, the head of the Cleveland Syndicate. He was a major bootlegger during Prohibition whose flotillas of illegal liquor on the Great Lakes came to be known as The Little Jewish Navy. His family ran legitimate laundry businesses in Boston and Detroit. Too old to be drafted during World War II, he enlisted at the age of 42 and was commissioned as a lieutenant. Dalitz ran the military laundry service on New York’s Governor’s Island — but declined to bunk in the island’s barracks, opting instead to stay at a swanky hotel overlooking Central Park.
Then there was Johnny Eder, a major source for Geik’s narrative. Eder was part of the Lower East Side teenage crime crew that included Uncle Charlie and Uncle George. As an adult he was a major fence for stolen jewelry and always had a bag of stolen rings on him. Eder also had many connections at City Hall and in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.
According to Geik’s account, Eder was the mob’s representative to the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary force in Palestine. Eder arranged meetings in the noisy kitchen of the Copacabana, a mob hangout, between Haganah agents and mobsters and others described as “former wartime U.S. intelligence agents” working to secure weapons for Israel’s War of Independence. (The late Teddy Kollek, Jerusalem’s longtime mayor, would tell a story about passing cash to an intermediary at the Copacabana, who brought the money to an Irish sea caption with a ship full of munitions bound for the Holy Land. The bagman, according to Kollek, was Frank Sinatra.)
Author Alan Geik’s father-in-law, Lou Lenart, left, and other fighter pilots in front of Avia-S-199 plane. Lenart was part of the group of men transporting surplus fighter planes and other weapons to the Holy Land for use in the War of Independence. (Courtesy of Boaz Dvir)
Alan Geik has a very personal connection to the creation of the Jewish state. His late wife Nina was the daughter of Lou Lenart, a World War II fighter pilot who served in the U.S. Marines. Geik’s memoir details how the elder Lenart was part of the group of men transporting surplus fighter planes and other weapons to Palestine for use in Israel’s War of Independence. Lenart’s story was featured in Nancy Spielberg’s 2014 documentary “Above and Beyond,” about the creation of the Israeli air force.
The story of how Jewish gangsters used some violent muscle against Nazi sympathizers in New York has been told before in historical accounts, but one episode in Geik’s memoir is particularly dramatic. A pair of Jews attended a Bund rally at Camp Siegfried on Long Island, a summer camp that taught Nazi ideology, and were offered a ride back to the city by a Nazi sympathizer who they ended up beating senseless in Brooklyn.
Alan Geik was not really hungry when he met Meyer Lansky at a Central Park hotel in the late 1950s. The gangster asked the 15-year-old nephew of George Gordon if he wanted a pastrami sandwich. Geik declined. Then Lansky, who struck Geik as an “older Jewish man who I knew was really powerful,” suggested that they split one. It was an offer that Geik did not refuse.
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Father and Son Behind Bondi Mass Shooting, Australia Police Say
A man lights a candle as police officers stand guard following the attack on a Jewish holiday celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, December 15, 2025. REUTERS/Flavio Brancaleone
Two gunmen who attacked a Jewish celebration in Sydney’s Bondi Beach that killed 15 people were a father and son, police said on Monday, as Australia mourned victims of its worst gun violence in almost 30 years.
The father, a 50-year-old, was killed at the scene while his 24-year-old son was in critical condition in the hospital, police said at a press conference on Monday. Officials have described the shooting on Sunday as a targeted antisemitic attack.
Witnesses said the attack at the famed beach, which was packed on a hot evening, lasted about 10 minutes, sending hundreds of people scattering along the sand and into nearby streets and parks. Police said around 1,000 people had attended the Hanukkah event.
Forty people remain in hospital following the attack, including two police officers who are in a serious but stable condition, police said. The victims were aged between 10 and 87.
Authorities said they were confident only two attackers were involved in the incident after previously saying they were checking whether a third offender was involved.
Police investigations are ongoing and police numbers have been increased in Jewish communities.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who visited the scene on Monday, called the attack a “dark moment for our nation,” and said police and security agencies were thoroughly checking the motive behind the attack.
“What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil, an act of antisemitism, an act of terrorism on our shores in an iconic Australian location,” Albanese told reporters.
“The Jewish community are hurting today. Today, all Australians wrap our arms around them and say, we stand with you. We will do whatever is necessary to stamp out antisemitism. It is a scourge, and we will eradicate it together.”
Albanese said several world leaders including US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron had reached out and he thanked them for their solidarity.
“In Australia, there was a terrible attack … and that was an antisemitic attack obviously,” Trump said during a Christmas reception at the White House on Sunday, paying respects for the victims of attacks at Bondi and another shooting at Rhode Island’s Brown University.
‘SAW BODIES ON THE GROUND’
A bystander captured on video tackling and disarming an armed man during the attack has been hailed as a hero whose actions saved lives.
In Bondi, hundreds of police personnel remained on site on Monday as the suburb’s main road remained closed, after being declared a crime scene.
Rabbi Mendel Kastel, whose brother-in-law Eli Schlanger was killed in Sunday’s attack, said it had been a harrowing evening.
“You can very easily become very angry and try to blame people, turn on people but that’s not what this is about. It’s about a community,” he said.
“We need to step up at a time like this, be there for each other, and come together. And we will, and we will get through this, and we know that. The Australian community will help us do it,” he added.
Local woman Danielle, who declined to give her surname, was at the beach when the shooting occurred and raced to collect her daughter who was attending a bar mitzvah at a function center near where the alleged shooters were positioned.
“I heard there was a shooting so I bolted there to get my daughter, I could hear gunshots, I saw bodies on the ground. We are used to being scared, we have felt this way since October 7.”
Sunday’s shootings were the most serious of a string of antisemitic attacks on synagogues, buildings and cars in Australia since the beginning of Israel‘s war in Gaza in October 2023.
Australia’s Jewish diaspora is small but deeply embedded in the wider community, with about 150,000 people who identify as Jewish in the country of 27 million. About one-third of them are estimated to live in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, including Bondi.
Major cities including Berlin, London and New York stepped up security around Hanukkah events on Sunday following the attack at Bondi.
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World Reacts to Deadly Shooting at Australia’s Bondi Beach
People walk at the scene of a shooting incident at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia, December 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kirsty Needham
At least 11 people were killed and dozens wounded when gunmen opened fire during a Jewish holiday event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday, Australian officials said.
Following are comments from world leaders in the wake of the deadly shooting:
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA
“This is a targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Hanukkah, which should be a day of joy, a celebration of faith.
“At this dark moment for our nation, our police and security agencies are working to determine anyone associated with this outrage.”
SUSSAN LEY, OPPOSITION LEADER OF AUSTRALIA
“Australians are in deep mourning tonight, with hateful violence striking at the heart of an iconic Australian community, a place we all know so well and love, Bondi.”
BRITAIN’S KING CHARLES
“My wife and I are appalled and saddened by the most dreadful antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish people attending the Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach.
“Our hearts go out to everyone who has been affected so dreadfully, including the police officers who were injured while protecting members of their community. We commend the police, emergency services and members of the public whose heroic actions no doubt prevented even greater horror and tragedy.”
FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON
“In Sydney, an antisemitic terrorist attack struck families gathered to celebrate Hanukkah. France extends its thoughts to the victims, the injured and their loved ones. We share the pain of the Australian people and will continue to fight relentlessly against antisemitic hatred, which hurts us all, wherever it strikes.”
US SECRETARY OF STATE, MARCO RUBIO
“Antisemitism has no place in this world. Our prayers are with the victims of this horrific attack, the Jewish community, and the people of Australia.”
UN SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTONIO GUTERRES
“I am horrified and condemn today’s heinous deadly attack on Jewish families gathered in Sydney to celebrate Hannukah. My heart is with the Jewish community worldwide on this first day of Hannukah, a festival celebrating the miracle of peace and light vanquishing darkness.”
FRIEDRICH MERZ, CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY
“The antisemitic attack at Bondi Beach during Hanukkah leaves me utterly shocked. My thoughts are with the victims and their families. This is an attack on our shared values. We must fight antisemitism – here in Germany and around the world.”
NARENDRA MODI, PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA
“Strongly condemn the ghastly terrorist attack carried out today at Bondi Beach, Australia, targeting people celebrating the first day of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.
“On behalf of the people of India, I extend my sincere condolences to the families who lost their loved ones. We stand in solidarity with the people of Australia in this hour of grief. India has zero tolerance towards terrorism and supports the fight against all forms and manifestations of terrorism.”
KEIR STARMER, UK PRIME MINISTER
“Deeply distressing news from Australia. The United Kingdom sends our thoughts and condolences to everyone affected by the appalling attack in Bondi Beach.”
CHRISTOPHER LUXON, PRIME MINISTER OF NEW ZEALAND
“Australia and New Zealand are closer than friends, we’re family. I am shocked by the distressing scenes at Bondi, a place that Kiwis visit every day.
“My thoughts, and the thoughts of all New Zealanders, are with those affected.”
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL
“A few months ago, I wrote a letter to the prime minister of Australia. I told him that their policies pour fuel on the antisemitic fire. It encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets. Antisemitism is a cancer. It spreads when leaders stay silent, and you must replace weakness with action.
“This didn’t happen in Australia, and something terrible happened there today: cold-blooded murder. The number of those murdered, sadly, grows, with each moment.”
GIDEON SA’AR, FOREIGN MINISTER OF ISRAEL
“I’m appalled by the murderous shooting attack at a Hanukkah event in Sydney, Australia.
“These are the results of the anti-Semitic rampage in the streets of Australia over the past two years, with the anti-Semitic and inciting calls of ‘Globalise the Intifada’ that were realized today.”
IRAN FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESPERSON, ESMAEIL BAGHAEI
“We condemn the violent attack in Sydney, Australia. The assassination and killing of human beings, wherever it occurs, is reprehensible and condemned.”
URSULA VON DER LEYEN, EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT
“Shocked by the tragic attack at Bondi Beach. I send my heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims.
“Europe stands with Australia and Jewish communities everywhere. We are united against violence, antisemitism and hatred.”
DONALD TUSK, PRIME MINISTER OF POLAND
“My deepest condolences to the families of the victims of the terrible terrorist attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney. Antisemitism, wherever it appears, leads to acts of crime. Today, Poland stands with Australia in this moment of grief.”
KAROL NAWROCKI, PRESIDENT OF POLAND
“I express my full condemnation of the terrorist attack in Sydney. I extend my condolences to the families of the victims of this unimaginable crime.”
SPANISH FOREIGN MINISTER JOSE MANUEL ALBARES
“Horrified by the terrorist attack in Australia against the Jewish community. My solidarity with the victims and their loved ones, with the people and government of Australia.
“Hate, antisemitism, and violence have no place in our societies.”
JONAS GAHR STOERE, PRIME MINISTER OF NORWAY
“I am shocked by the horrific attack at Bondi Beach, Australia, during a Jewish Hanukkah event.
“I condemn this despicable act of terror in the strongest possible terms. My deepest condolences to all those affected by today’s tragic attack.”
ULF KRISTERSSON, PRIME MINISTER OF SWEDEN
“Appalled by the attack in Sydney, targeted against the Jewish community.
“My thoughts are with the victims and their families. Together, we must fight the spread of antisemitism.”
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After Australia shooting, Jewish leaders say Mamdani’s refusal to condemn ‘globalize the intifada’ has consequences
The shooting attack targeting a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s popular Bondi Beach on the first night of Hanukkah, in which at least 15 people were killed, reignited sharp criticism of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the “globalize the intifada” slogan during the mayoral election.
“When you refuse to condemn and only ‘discourage’ use of the term ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ you help facilitate (not cause) the thinking that leads to Bondi Beach,” Deborah Lipstadt, a Holocaust historian and the State Department special envoy to combat and monitor antisemitism in the Biden administration, wrote on X in a post addressed to Mamdani.
Police said a father and son were behind the mass shooting in Australia, with authorities adding that they would need more time to determine a motive.
Mamdani, a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, faced fierce backlash during the Democratic primary for defending the slogan used by some at the pro-Palestinian protests and perceived by many as a call for violence against Jews. After his surprise primary victory in June, Mamdani clarified that he understood why the phrase alarmed people and noted that it was not language he personally uses, but he declined to explicitly condemn it.
He later said he would “discourage” the use of that phrase after hearing from Jewish leaders who experienced the bus bombings during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.
Lipstadt included a link to a June Politico article detailing Mamdani’s initial refusal to condemn the slogan.
Rabbi David Wolpe, the emeritus rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and a harsh critic of Harvard’s handling of antisemitism on campus, wrote, “How about now, Mr. Mayor?” Republicans and Mamdani critics echoed the same sentiment.
New York City is home to the largest concentration of Jews in the United States.
Outgoing Mayor Eric Adams indirectly referenced the controversy during a press conference with Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who Mamdani has reappointed to serve in his administration. “That attack in Sydney is exactly what it means to ‘globalize the Intifada,’” Adams said. “We saw the actual application of the globalization of the intifada in Sydney.”
Reacting to Bondi Beach attack, Mayor Eric Adams says:
“That attack in Sydney is exactly what it means to ‘globalize the Intifada.’ We saw the actual application of the globalization of the intifada in Sydney…” pic.twitter.com/3EI3IZp3Dg
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) December 14, 2025
Mamdani issued a statement on Sunday, calling the attack in Sydney a “vile act of antisemitic terror” and “the latest, most horrifying iteration in a growing pattern of violence targeted at Jewish people across the world.” He said the deadly attack should be met with urgent action to counter antisemitism. He also reiterated his pledge to “work every day to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe — on our streets, our subways, at shul, in every moment of every day.”
A spokesperson for Mamdani didn’t immediately respond to comment on Lipstadt’s post.
In an interview aired Sunday, Mamdani responded to criticism from Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, the senior rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, who said after a meeting with Mamdani on Thursday that the mayor-elect’s refusal to recognize Israel specifically as a Jewish state could fuel antisemitism.
Hirsch, who also serves as president of the New York Board of Rabbis, was present at a 45-minute discussion with Mamdani as part of the mayor-elect’s outreach to Jewish leaders. Rabbi Joe Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, said the conversation was “candid” and “constructive.”
“Rabbi Hirsch is entitled to his opinions,” Mamdani told CBS New York’s political reporter Marcia Kramer on her program The Point. “The positions that I’ve made clear on Israel and on Palestine, these are part of universal beliefs of equal rights and the necessity of it for all people everywhere.” He added, “My inability to say what Rabbi Hirsch would like me to say comes from a belief that every state should be of equal rights, whether we’re speaking about Israel or Saudi Arabia or anywhere in the world.”
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