Something is troubling Rachel Shukert. Despite all of the bells and Steve Buscemi whistles, HBO’s Prohibition-era drama Boardwalk Empire just doesn’t do it for her. Why? “It’s because I want Boardwalk Empire to be a show all about the Jewish gangsters,” she explains. After all, they’re the most unpredictable characters on the show:

What we get on the show is just enough to whet my appetite. I thrill every time the legendary criminal mastermind Arnold Rothstein (played by the great Michael Stuhlbarg), the man who fixed the 1919 World Series and inspired the character of Meyer Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby, appears on screen, demurely sipping a cup of coffee and smiling quietly at something known only to himself; why do we get him in such small doses, and mainly reacting to the machinations of Nucky Thompson, the world’s most sheepish crime boss? When Meyer Lansky (Anatol Yusuf) first showed up, I let out a Belieber-esque squeal; this season he’s playing second fiddle to Gyp Rosetti (Bobby Cannavale), your standard-issue maniac killer/sex pervert (he likes women to tie him up and choke him. Snore.) I was fascinated by the character of Manny Horvitz, the garrulous kosher-butcher-cum-bloodthirsty-gangster who calls everybody “boychik” and dry-ages his enemies on meat hooks in the deep freeze, until (spoiler alert!) they let the guy with half a face (who is Anjelica Huston’s nephew and even with his Phantom of the Opera mask on, is still attractive beyond all sense) blow him away in the first episode of the new season. That was five weeks ago. I’m still sitting shiva.

Read the rest at Tablet Magazine.

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Meyer Lansky Lives: Talking With Anatol Yusef Of Boardwalk Empire
The Unkillable Kosher Butcher Of Boardwalk Empire
From Boardwalk Empire To Gatsby: Top Five Arnold Rothstein Pop Culture Moments

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Boardwalk Empire is easily one of the most talked about new shows of the season and for good reason: great cast, fantastic scenery, and well researched.

While the show features several Irish, Italian and African-American antiheroes and bad guys, it’s also given us one of the best pop culture representations of the greatest Jewish gangster of them all: Arnold Rothstein.  In Boardwalk Empire, Rothstein, played by Michael Stuhlbarg, is given something of a dandy persona.  But as you can see below, what is known about Rothstein is more fictional than fact.  The real Arnold Rothstein was a man whose life and death were shrouded in mystery, and he’s been represented several different ways over the years.

1. Meyer Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby

While there’s always been some debate as to whether Gatsby himself was a Yid (his real last name is Gatz), there is no doubt that his associate Meyer Wolfsheim had a bar mitzvah. F. Scott Fitzgerald leaves little to the imagination as Gatsby tells Nick Carraway that Wolfsheim is the man behind the thing Rothstein is most known for: fixing the 1919 World Series.

2. Tough Jews Rich Cohen and King of the Jews by Nick Tosches

Both books are great reads.  Cohen gives you a more straightforward account of Rothstein and his fellow Jewish gangsters, while Tosches attempts to use him as a springboard to explain Western civilization as a whole.

3. Mobsters

If ever there was a role that made people think F. Murray Abrams was a Jew, playing Rothstein with a pencil mustache may have been it.  Even though this early 1990s buddy drama was a total stinker, at least you can say you saw Patrick Dempsey playing Meyer Lansky, and an appearance by Fyvush Finkel.

4. Eight Men Out

Watch this 1988 film about the 1919 Black Sox scandal, then try and tell us you see any sort of resemblance between Boardwalk Empire’s Rothstein, and the larger sized version played by Michael Lerner.

5.  Hyman Roth in The Godfather 2

Possibly the most well-known fictional Jewish gangster ever says that Rothstein was his inspiration.  It’s good to have role models  — even if you’re a gangster.

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