Studies Show
A “GHOULISH JAMBOREE”: THE NOT-SO-JEWISH JEWISH FUNERAL OF MOB BOSS BESSIE STARKMAN by MONDA HALPERN
written in August 1930 by ace reporter Frederick Griffin for the Toronto Star . He was attending the funeral of Bes- sie Starkman, the 40-year-old Jewish bootlegger, drug lord, and gangster who had been gunned down in the garage of her lavish Hamilton, On- tario, home. The assassination, both mysterious and brutal, sparked a col- lective frenzy among observers and mourners, partly due to Bessie’s char- ismatic long-time partner in crime and love: mob boss Rocco Perri. An Italian Catholic grifter who first met Bessie in 1912 when he board- ed in her Toronto home — one she shared with her husband and two toddlers — Rocco wanted a funeral befitting her lofty station and repu- tation. She was a mother and grand- mother, a successful entrepreneur,
and the companion of “Canada’s Al Capone” (Rocco’s self-declared moniker). In keeping with the fu- neral customs of both gangland and Italian Catholic culture, Rocco planned a spectacle, one marked by crowds, adulation, and opulence. But Bessie was Jewish, and Jewish funeral and mourning traditions did not generally endorse such displays. While Perri ensured that a rabbi officiated the funeral and that Bessie was buried in Hamilton’s Orthodox Jewish cemetery, the occasion did not otherwise conform to Jewish law and custom. Indeed, it was a bona fide clash of cultures. Monda Halpern is a professor of history at Western University. She is currently writing a book on Bessie Starkman.
THE CROWD, avid for a close-up … would not give way. The pro- ceedings grew grotesque. There was loud shouting. Around the grave there was literally a fight as people struggled to get close. There was pushing and shov- ing such as you’d see in a foot- ball scrum, the angry shouts of men, the attempts of the cem- etery workers to make a clear space, the cries of women being pushed and hurt, the wailing of the female mourners. It was a miniature bedlam. … I have never seen anything so pitiful- ly terrible. This lively account, entitled “Gro- tesque Ceremony Becomes Free-For- All of Morbid Curiosity,” was
“STUDIES SHOW” is a collaboration between Scribe Quarterly and the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies (ACJS) to introduce innovative new academic research about Canadian Jewry to a wider readership. For each installment, Scribe Quarterly editors curate a selection of articles from the pages of the ACJS’s flagship journal, Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes , and work directly with their authors to create short, accessible summaries of that scholarly work. CANADIAN JEWISH STUDIES / ÉTUDES JUIVES CANADIENNES is an interdisciplinary journal devoted to original scholarship about the Canadian Jewish experience—past, present, and future. It has been published since 1993 by the ACJS, the leading organization dedicated to advancing public knowledge of the Jewish experience in Canada through scholarship, research, and community-oriented initiatives. The journal is available for free online; individual issues can also be ordered in print.
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