Editing Eastman Gang (section)

==Origins and composition==
The gang developed in the immigrant neighborhoods of the Lower East Side, particularly around Corlear's Hook and Rivington Street. It drew heavily from Jewish-American neighborhood groups but also included people from other ethnic backgrounds. “Jewish gang” describes its predominant social composition, not a religious institution or a body representing Jewish New Yorkers.

Eastman's own identity is disputed. Herbert Asbury and many later writers called him Edward Osterman, the son of Jewish restaurateurs. Records-based modern accounts instead identify him as Edward Eastman, born in 1875 to Samuel Eastman and Mary Parks, a family apparently of non-Jewish English-American background.<ref name="Identity">[https://americanmafiahistory.com/monk-eastman/ “Monk Eastman: Last of the Old-Time Gangsters”], ''American Mafia History'', discussing the Eastman/Osterman identity dispute and city-record reconstruction.</ref> The article therefore does not infer Eastman's religion from the gang's membership.