The Heyday of Jewish Organized Crime

This chapter focuses on the dominant actors and criminal activities in Israel before and after 2003, which was a turning point in Israeli attitudes toward organized crime. The criminal dynamics, networks, criminal culture, conflicts, and, last but not the least, law enforcement responses are analyzed based on specific cases. Generational conflict and ethnic Jewish criminal identity play an important role in understanding the dynamics of organized crime in Israel. A major law enforcement operation, called Case 512, resulted in many arrests, but also led to the reorganization of Jewish criminal groups and the emergence of new crime bosses and criminal alliances.