In 1850, a German family of “itinerate peddlers” emigrated to New York’s Lower East Side. The young wife Fredericka, aka “Mother” Mandelbaum, became an upstanding member of the community, and a generous donor to her synagogue.

She funded her lifestyle dealing in stolen goods, and organizing blackmailers, pickpockets, and sophisticated bank heists.

Her worlds met at her glamorous dinner parties, hosting many a corrupt police officer and Tammany Hall official .

Join us to learn of the blossoming of this immigrant Jewish woman in the world of “greenbacks” and organized crime, during the “Gilded Age” of municipal corruption and stark inequality.

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