Tahoe Douglas Rotary speaker: An Untold American Tale about Fighting Fascism in 1930s New Jersey

The Tahoe Douglas Rotary Club will be welcoming screenwriter, author and executive producer Leslie K. Barry to their October 9 meeting, and the public is invited to join in the virtual event. She will be speaking about her new book, Newark Minutemen: A True 1930’s Legend About One Man’s Mission to Save a Nation’s Soul Without Losing His Own.

The book, which will be released in December, is based on the incredible true story from the 1930s about a Jewish boxer who goes undercover for the mob and FBI to fight fascism in New Jersey during the Great Depression. It was a time when America remained complacent as Hitler spread racial hatred in Europe, and his fanatics could brashly goose-step down American streets waving twin Swastika and US flags, led by Fuhrer Fritz Kuhn. The Newark Minutemen were a militia of Jewish mafia boxers who rose up to fight this American Nazi shadow party and, perhaps the greatest enemy of all, American complacency against this looming evil.

Barry's uncle, a Newark Minuteman boxer, is the basis for the novel. The story was pieced together from first-hand accounts from her 93-year old mother and her cousin, FBI reports, boxes of undercover source material and years of research. Barry then pits a star-crossed love affair over the setting to create a story of conflict and courage.

The film rights have been optioned by Fullwell73, the independent production company behind “The Late Late Show with James Corden.”

“Newark Minutemen is an epic story of battles, boxers and mafia, overlaid with an explosive love affair that compares with the classic star-crossed stories from Casablanca to Titanic,” said Leo Pearlman, Partner and Producer at Fulwell73. “This would be an important story to tell at any time in history, but right now, with the lessons we can learn from the past, it is an essential one, that everyone should see." 

In Newark Minutemen, Barry depicts a world where American democracy is being threatened by a Hitler-Nazi party that lurks in the shadows, one with a self-proclaimed “American Hitler” and a 1939 Nuremberg-like rally at Madison Square Garden. 1930s Jewish boxer, Yael Newman is recruited into the Newark Minutemen and joins the fight against the rise of fascism in America. During his undercover mission to rid the country of the American Führer, he becomes entangled in an unlikely love affair, falling in love with the enemy’s daughter.

Newark Minutemen is a 1930’s fictionalized account of a real-life FBI-backed mafia militia of Jewish boxers called the Newark Minutemen. According to Leslie K. Barry, this story has never been more relevant, with the sounds of fascism on the rise globally.

This is not a WW2 story. It comes well before, and on American soil. Few have heard of Newark Minutemen or the 1930s American Nazi party lead by the self-proclaimed American Hitler, Fuhrer Fritz Kuhn. Based on the membership of the author’s Uncle as a Newark Minuteman boxer, the story is recounted by a first-hand account of her 93-year old mother and cousin, FBI reports, boxes of undercover source material and much more.  As the world suffers through Depression and Hitler spreads racial hatred, America remains complacent even as Hitler-replicas brashly goose-step down our own American Avenues waving twin Swastika and American flags in our face, saluting Heil Hitler, Nazifying German-American youth at 25 American Hitler camps, infiltrating our military factories, planning sabotage against harbors and stealing top-secret plans.  Enter, the secret Newark Minutemen. The militia of Jewish mafia boxers rise-up and clobber Hitler’s American Nazi shadow party who rally Third Reich support with paramilitary efforts to set the stage for a looming horror. Even more than Nazis, the Newark Minutemen battle the greatest enemy of all—complacency. For more on this era see NewarkMinutemen.com

To join in the noon Zoom meeting, visit HERE.

For more information about Tahoe Douglas Rotary, visit their website HERE.

About the Author:

Leslie K. Barry is most recently a screenwriter, author and executive producer. Her previous professional work includes executive positions with major entertainment companies including Turner Broadcasting, Hasbro/Parker Brothers, Mattel, Mindscape Video Games. Other areas of business include executive for the first e-shopping platform called eShop and marketing for Lotus Development and AOL. She was an Alpha Sigma Tau at JMU in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley and attended a grad program at Harvard. She has spent the last twenty five years with her husband in Tiburon, Calif. raising their four kids and dog. On the side, she’s devoted to genealogy where she has uncovered many ideas for her developing stories and created family storybooks. For fun, she skis in Sun Valley, Idaho, plays tennis and visits her family in Maryland where they often enjoy Maryland hard crabs.