Julius Bernstein Is "The Last Jewish Mobster"
Julius Bernstein was a relic of a different era: Raised in the Depression, a genuine World War II hero — and the last of New York’s great Jewish gangsters. Julius Bernstein, dubbed the last Jewish Mobster. While the Brooklyn native connived for decades in anonymity, his once-secret FBI file — obtained by the Daily News — exposes for the first time a life devoted to earning crooked cash with the Genovese family. Pages of confidential documents provided via the Freedom of Information Law detail Bernstein’s extraordinary mob life and times: Shaking down the Sbarro restaurant chain for cash payoffs across four decades. Seizing control of a bus drivers’ union to amass an illegal fortune. Working side-by-side with legendary Gambino family capo Matthew Ianniello . When he finally flipped and became a federal informant shortly before his October 2007 death, no one was more surprised than the gangster known as Spike. “Wiseguys trust me,” he said on his ...