Joseph "Joe The Greaser" Rosenzweig (born c. 1891, year of death unknown) was an American

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

labor racketeer in the early 1900s as an ally of "Dopey" Benny Fein during the

Labor Slugger Wars The Labor Sluggers War was a 15-year period of gang wars among New York City labor sluggers for control of labor racketeering from 1911 to 1927. This began in 1911 with the first war between "Dopey" Benny Fein and Joe "The Greaser" Rosenzweig ...

(1914–1917).

Biography

Born in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

, Rosenzweig arrived in New York during the 1890s and worked as a tailor's presser for several years before forming a criminal gang around 1907. Controlling labor slugging in New York's Lower East Side, Rosenzweig's organization of around one hundred acted mostly as

strikebreaker A strikebreaker (sometimes called a scab, blackleg, or knobstick) is a person who works despite a strike. Strikebreakers are usually individuals who were not employed by the company before the trade union dispute but hired after or during the st ...

s, specializing in breaking up

union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

picket lines, demonstrations and other protests. With political protection from

Tammany Hall Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...

Rosenzweig maintained complete control of strikebreaking and labor slugging well into the early 1910s. Rosenzweig's dominance was challenged in 1913, when Philip "Pinchey" Paul began a war with Rosenzweig, lasting over several months. The war ended with Paul's death the following year, when he was killed by Rosenzweig and several gunmen, including Jacob Heiseman,

Benjamin Snyder Benjamin "Benny" Snyder or SchneiderFried, Albert. ''The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America''. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980. (p. 82) ( fl. 1900–1915) was an American criminal, union organizer and thug for hire during ...

and

Hyman Berthstein Surname Hyman is the surname of: * Alan Hyman (1910–1999), author and screenwriter * Alexander C. Hyman (Born 1993), American Businessman * Albert Hyman (1893–1972), co-inventor of the artificial pacemaker * Anthony Hyman (disambiguation), s ...

. When he was later arrested for the murder Rosenzweig agreed to testify against the other gang members. Despite his testimony Rosenzweig was sentenced to ten years imprisonment, along with Snyder, to

Sing Sing Sing Sing Correctional Facility, formerly Ossining Correctional Facility, is a maximum-security prison operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining, New York. It is about north of ...

Prison in December 1915. Upon Rosenzweig's release in 1925 he returned to

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

to find his gang had long since disappeared. After he received a warning from ex-lieutenant

Waxey Gordon Waxey Gordon (born Irving Wexler; January 19, 1888 – June 24, 1952) was an American gangster who specialized in bootlegging and illegal gambling. An associate of Arnold Rothstein during prohibition, he was caught up in a power struggle foll ...

against attempting to reform his gang he soon left New York retiring from crime thereafter.

Biography

References

Further reading