1/4/2023 0 Comments Mimeo photos prints![]() ![]() The Jewish press and leaders were upset and rejected Bingham’s statements as antisemitic attacks underpinned with seemingly statistic figures. Four years previously, Police Commissioner Theodore A. Bingham published an article titled Foreign Criminals in New York in the North American Review, stating that half of the city’s delinquents were Jews. Yet this was not the first time that the New York Jewish community’s involvement in vice made the headlines. The more scandalous the crime, the more important the lesson that should be learned from it, and the Rosenthal murder seemed exceptional: Most of the people implicated – the gunmen, the helpers, and the victim – were Jewish. At the turn of the century, judicial reporting was increasingly perceived as a place for the discussion – and determination – of moral and social standards by an engaged public. Their immediate and visually compelling reactions were not without good cause. News traveled fast throughout the United States and newspapers across the whole country found themselves occupied with this crime. The meticulous sketch published by The World on the very same day of the murder is a manifestation of the contemporary foible for sensationalist judicial reporting. But Rosenthal never made it there: Six hours before his testimony, at 2 am on 16 July 1912, he was shot dead after leaving the Hotel Metropole. ![]() After he visited Whitman again on 15 July 1912 and provided names of witnesses, Whitman agreed to let him make his case in front of a grand jury. ![]() Rosenthal felt harassed by the increased police presence in his home, located in the same building as the parlor, which made it impossible for him to pursue his line of business. One police lieutenant was specifically prominent in his accounts: Charles Becker, who ran the »strong arm squad,« was supposed to raid a gambling parlor at 104 West 45th Street, but allegedly acted as Rosenthal’s silent partner in this establishment. In early July, he met with District Attorney Charles Whitman, offering incriminating information on the police’s involvement in New York’s underworld. But the situation had changed for the worse. As part of a larger network of Jewish gamblers that enjoyed a kind of paid protection by the New York police, Rosenthal could generally mind his own business. He had lived dangerously before already, certainly, but this summer he had exhausted his »colleagues’« goodwill. Herman ✻eansy« Rosenthal had led a dangerous life in the first half of July 1912. ![]()
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