Just read an excerpt from The Mafia Encyclopedia and the writer explained that in fact there were 2 commissions..

The one that we all know from books like Man of Honor etc.
And one, which I never heard of, who was even more powerful consisting of 3 Italian gangsters and 3 Jewish Gangsters.

The line-up was Meyer Lansky, Abner Zwillman, Jake Guzik, Tony Accardo, Frank Costello and Joe Adonis..

The link of the excerpt is below, I wonder if anybody else had any thoughts or knew more about it, because this really was news to me..

https://books.google.nl/books?id=jgCpxTp...ion&f=false

Anyone can write a book and put sensationalist crap in it to make sales. It's likely that people met and made deals for financial gain, but does that make it a commission?

Never in a million years

I have that book, I read that also.
You would be suprised at how much nonsense is actually in print, presented as fact..

Yes I'm really surprised by that, I haven't read the book myself but in his videos Bloodletters & Badmen often uses excerpts from the book and to me that always came across as very plausible but this 2 commissions thing I've never heard of and actually don't really believe as nobody else has either..

The author is mistaken. "Big Six" refers to an ad hoc group of six gangsters--three Jews (Lansky, Siegel, Zwillman) and three Italians (Adonis, Costello and Luciano)--who got together at the famous May, 1929, gangster convention in Atlantic City, NJ. The agreed to cartelize the booze trade along the US East Coast. They were never "the Commission," which wasn't formed until after the Castellemmarese War of 1930-31, and after Luciano arranged for the assassinations of Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano. Jews (Lansky, Siegel, Dutch Shultz) sat with the Commission at times, but were never members.

Thank you Turnbull

I wouldn't blame the author, since I've read about it in other older sources. I'm pretty sure the source of this other board or commission is law enforcement during the 1930's thru 1940's. These men were observed by FBN agents meeting in the NJ area. Phrases like the Big 6, Big 8 (not to be confused with the Big 7 AC conference) or the syndicate were probably coined by local tabloids.

Mulberry may be right in that they met for financial gain and was not an actual commission. For the most part it looks like nothing more than Luciano/Lansky's top associates during that period.

I'd always heard "Big Six" referring to the (brief) post-Castellamarese period where the Schultz group was the last Jewish organization standing. (i.e., the five families and Schultz). Not so much a commission as much as a realistic grouping of the powers in the city.

I've read that book more than a few times. The bios on the old-timers are entertaining and written well, and that's about all it has going for it. It's really more of a product of a different age, I think, where "real" mob workings weren't as widely exposed as they are now, and any information was better than good information to a lot of the intended audience.

I don't see why the Italians, who were the most powerful organization in the country, would share this power with any other outfit. The commission which existed long before Luciano came along was the one that ruled the Italians. Whatever co-operation they might have had with other ethnicities is another thing. There certainly wasn't any multi-ethnic commission that would give orders to Italians.