To add to Mark Haller's post about Jewish bootleggers, there were indeed
many Jews in New York and on the East Coast involved in bootlegging, both
large-scale and small-time. Some of the more interesting cases involved
bootleggers who used the federal exemption for sacramental wine to set up
fake Jewish congregations and sell wine to the non-Jews. The "Menorah Wine
Scandal" of 1921 was one such case in New York. I think the story was
originally printed by a Providence, RI paper and subsequently in the New
York Times.
 
There is an excellent article on Jews and Prohibition by Hannah Sprecher in
American Jewish Archives, v. 43, 1991, pp. 135-80. (Can't find the title
right now, sorry.) There are TONS of records on Jews and bootlegging and
Prohibition violations, but as I have found in my dissertation research, it
takes A LOT of digging to find them.
 
Michael A. Lerner
New York University
Department of History