Bugsy Siegel: The Dark Side of the American Dream
Rebecca Keys
In a brief life that led to a violent end, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel rose from desperate poverty to ill-gotten riches, from an early-twentieth-century family of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side to a kingdom of his own making in Las Vegas.
Join Vanity Fair writer Michael Shnayerson for a 60-minute discussion in which Shnayerson sets out not to absolve Bugsy Siegel, but rather to understand him in all his complexity.
This program took place on Jul 22, 2021 in partnership with Park Avenue Synagogue, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, and Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning.
By Michael Shnayerson
Published February 9, 2021
248 pages
“Amazing” —Nicholas Pileggi
The story of the notorious Jewish gangster who ascended from impoverished beginnings to the glittering Las Vegas strip
In a brief life that led to a violent end, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel (1906–1947) rose from desperate poverty to ill-gotten riches, from an early-twentieth-century family of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side to a kingdom of his own making in Las Vegas. In this captivating portrait, author Michael Shnayerson sets out not to absolve Bugsy Siegel but rather to understand him in all his complexity.
Through the 1920s, 1930s, and most of the 1940s, Bugsy Siegel and his longtime partner in crime Meyer Lansky engaged in innumerable acts of violence. As World War II came to an end, Siegel saw the potential for a huge, elegant casino resort in the sands of Las Vegas. Jewish gangsters built nearly all of the Vegas casinos that followed. Then, one by one, they disappeared. Siegel’s story laces through a larger, generational story of eastern European Jewish immigrants in the early- to mid-twentieth century.