Opinion: 89-year-old ‘last Jewish gangster’ charms Kansas City-area audience with tales and takes

Myron Sugerman, the 89-year-old self-proclaimed “last Jewish mobster,” displayed an easy way with most everyone, whether chatting over warm cinnamon rolls at Best Regards Bakery, or speaking to an engaged audience of roughly 100 people at a local synagogue.

He flirted with abandon, had people scurrying in search of a restaurant serving pasta e fagioli, and seemed pleasantly surprised by the warmth of the Kansas Citians who received him.

“Back in New Jersey,” he said, “if nobody insults you, it means they don’t like you.” 

For Sugerman, his years in the mob were part La Cosa Nostra and part Kosher Nostra.

A bit profane but definitely endearing, Sugerman visited Overland Park’s Kehilath Israel Synagogue with stories of intrigue and to sell his book, “The Chronicles of The Last Jewish Gangster: From Meyer to Myron.” He spun vivid stories from a chair on stage, then signed books and chatted for hours.

Sugerman, like many of us, balances two sides. His duality, however, took him from Newark, New Jersey, to South America, to Africa, to Europe, through two assassination attempts, and to a startling perspective about the future of Jewish life in America. 

Amid the intrigue and double-crosses — dealing with people such as John Gotti, Tony “Bananas” Caponigro and Carlo Gambino — Sugerman’s escapades sometimes blurred the line between gangster and patriot. 

Fighting Nazis and antisemites after World War II, Sugerman said the the mob would pack weapons and ammunition in crates marked as farm equipment or sewing machines and send them off in support of the then-fledgling Jewish state of Israel.

He said he once helped Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, who tried to track down the ghoulish Nazi Josef Mengele, known as the “Angel of Death.” Wiesenthal pursued Mengele but never found him. 

In the fight against Nazis, “whether you were a pimp, a gangster, a cigarette girl or a prostitute, if you heard anything, you told,” Sugerman said.

Born in 1938 in Newark, by age 21 he followed his father into the family business — coin-operated amusements. Like his father, Barney “Sugie” Sugerman, Myron sold and operated slot machines, jukeboxes and anything else that entertained people in bars, nightclubs and hangouts.

He entertained the weekend synagogue audience for hours.

Someone asked how early he’d joined the mob.

“As I came out my mother’s womb,” Sugerman replied.

He told a boxing story in which a Jewish referee told a knocked-down fighter (who the referee thought was Jewish) that he was getting a “Jewish 10-count” so he could get up and continue the fight.

“You say one — then you wait a half-hour.”

When the fighter protested that he wasn’t Jewish, the ref said quickly, “Oh s***! Seven, eight, nine, 10, you’re out!” 

It was the fight for the Jewish state that animated a good part of Sugerman’s question-and-answer session following his speech. 

“We have about 25 years left in this country,” Sugerman told the audience, adding that antisemitism is as bad now as it has ever been, and getting worse. “I’m not trying to be negative, but I am realistic. The future of the Jew is in Israel.”

He said every Jewish home should have a weapon and know how to use it. An audience member named some Jewish gun clubs, including, “Bagels and Bullets” and “Lox and Loaded.”

After signing books and chatting up every person who’d waited in line for a book at the synagogue, he and a circle of friends hit Johnny Cascone’s Italian restaurant, where the search for pasta e fagioli continued.

In the dim restaurant, conversation turned to politics. Sugerman said he knew members of the Kushner family (Jared is the president’s son-unlaw), that his father knew most of the police officers from Newark, and that he remembered Rudy Giuliani as a gang-busting district attorney and good mayor. 

Politicians and gangsters often align. They know everyone in the neighborhood. They live by their wits and think fast on their feet. They’ve mastered observation. And since both politics and crime are blood sports, fear and violence serve as tireless aides.

During the day’s conversations, there were things Sugerman couldn’t “give two s***s about,” but his charisma balanced the occasional bawdy impulses. 

He was funny. 

He asked someone at the table to phone a wealthy relative so he could joke about running up a $1,000 bill and desperately needing money not only for the food, but also for a 20% gratuity.

He showed social dexterity.

When a waiter approached, Sugerman asked him where he was from. When he learned the young man hailed from Mexico, he began speaking to him in fluent Spanish at each interaction.

As he headed for the airport, he handed out his business card. It bore a simple elegance. His name, Myron Sugerman, is printed in cursive on the thin, white card with a wax paper feel.

Under his name and next to his phone number, his email address began with “charming@…”

Mark McCormick is a journalist and a nonprofit executive. He’s also the author of four books including “Barry Sanders: Now You See Him” (a New York Times bestseller), “Some Were Paupers. Some Were Kings: Dispatches from Kansas,” and his latest, “Kansas Matters: America’s Social Faultlines.” Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.