Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith

Isidor "Izzy" Einstein (1880–1938) and Moe W. Smith (1887–1960) were United States federal police officers, agents of the U.S. Prohibition Unit, who achieved the most number of arrests and convictions during the first years of the alcohol prohibition era (1920–1925). They were known nationally for successfully exploding illegal speakeasies and for using disguises in their work.

They made 4,932 arrests. In late 1925, Izzy and Moe were laid off in a reorganization of the bureau of enforcement. A report in Time magazine suggested they had attracted more publicity than wanted by the new political appointee heading the bureau, although the press and public loved the team. By 1930 both men were working as insurance salesmen.

Isidor Einstein (sometimes spelled Isadore) was born in 1880 into a Jewish family in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He grew up speaking Yiddish and likely was educated in a yeshivah; he also learned Hungarian, Polish and German, together with a smattering of other European languages. Einstein emigrated as a young man to the United States about 1901.

Moe W. Smith was born about 1887 in New York City. As a young man, he was a boxer.

About 1906, Einstein married Esther (born c. 1888, Austria/Galicia; immigrated c. 1891), an immigrant from Galicia. They had at least seven children together, but two died young before 1910. Surviving children were Joseph (c. 1910), Charles (c. 1912), Edward (c. 1914), Albert (c. 1916), and Milton (c. 1927).

Before 1920 Smith married Sadie Strauch, a Jewish native of Bohemia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, who had immigrated to New York and was a native Yiddish speaker. In the 1920 census, Moe and Sadie Smith (born c. 1891, imm./nat. 1898 or 1900) were recorded as living with her brother, Benjamin Strauch in Brooklyn. Their daughter Estelle was born c. 1925.

Einstein had started work as a salesman and later served as a postal clerk. He struggled to support his family, including his father, on that salary. Smith first worked as a cigar salesman, and then managed a small fight club. He also owned a cigar store.

The ratification in 1919 of the amendment to establish Prohibition in the United States required federal and local police forces to recruit new members rapidly in order to enforce the law. With no background in law enforcement, but speaking several languages (Yiddish, Hungarian, German, Polish, with a little Russian, French, Spanish and Italian) in addition to English, Einstein signed up as Prohibition Agent No. 1. In a short time, he invited his friend Moe Smith to join him as a partner. (They were both Masons, and may have met in the fraternal group. Though both were personally indifferent to temperance, they felt the law must be upheld, no matter how hard it was to enforce.)

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