Revision as of 11:47, 5 November 2007 edit158.109.1.9 (talk) →Demise of the Organization← Previous edit | Latest revision as of 13:59, 11 January 2025 edit undoNotAG on AWB (talk | contribs)Confirmed users1,720 editsm →top: per TfD, replaced: {{IPA-yi → {{IPA|yiTag: AWB | ||
(384 intermediate revisions by more than 100 users not shown) | |||
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
{{short description|Polish Jewish human trafficking organization operating in Argentina}} | |||
==Definition== | |||
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2024}} | |||
Zwi Migdal was a criminal organization of Jewish gangsters specialized in prostitution and trafficking of white women from the poor shtetls in Eastern Europe to the world. It operated from the 1860s to 1939. In its heyday, after the First World War, it counted with 400 members in Argentina alone, and made annual profit of 50 million dollars in the turn of the century. Its centre was Buenos Aires, with branch offices in several locations in Argentina and Brazil; New York City, NY; Warsaw, Poland; South Africa; India; and China. | |||
{{Infobox criminal organization | |||
| name = <!--(defaults to {{PAGENAME}})--> | |||
| image = File:Cuatro Famosos Tenebrosos.JPG | |||
| image_size = | |||
| caption = | |||
| founded = | |||
| founder = <!--or | founders = --> | |||
| named_after = Luis Zwi Migdal | |||
| founding_location = | |||
| years_active = 1867–1939 | |||
| territory = Argentina, Brazil, Poland, South Africa, United States | |||
| ethnicity = ] | |||
| membership = 1,000+ | |||
| leaders = | |||
| activities = | |||
| allies = ], ] | |||
| rivals = | |||
| notable_members = | |||
}} | |||
'''Zwi Migdal''' ({{langx|yi|צבי מגדל}}, {{IPA|yi|ˈtsvɪ mɪɡˈdal|IPA}} ]: ''Cwi Migdał'') was a ] founded by Jews in Poland in the 19th century, based mainly in Argentina. | |||
== History == | |||
==Origin and Meaning of the name== | |||
The group's main operation was the trafficking of Jewish women from Central Europe (mainly from ])<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UXBeBAAAQBAJ&q=especially+from+Warsaw&pg=PT30|title=Sex Trafficking in Postcolonial Literature: Transnational Narratives from Joyce to Bolaño|last=Reinares|first=Laura Barberán|date=August 27, 2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781317667926|language=en|quote=..the Zwi Migdal mainly imported Jewish woman (especially from Warsaw)..}}</ref> into ] and ].<ref name="Perush">{{cite web|last=Yarfitz|first=Mir|title=Caftens, Kurvehs, and Stille Chuppahs: Jewish Sex Workers and their Opponents in Buenos Aires, 1890–1930|url=http://perush.cjs.ucla.edu/index.php/volume-2/jewish-urban-history-in-comparative-perspective-jewish-buenos-aires-and-jewish-los-angeles/-6-mir-yarfitz-caftens-kurvehs-and-stille-chuppahs-jewish-sex-workers-and-their-opponents-in-buenos-aires-1890-1930|work=Perush: An Online Journal of Jewish Scholarship and Interpretation. Volume 2.|access-date=February 15, 2014|date=February 8–9, 2009}}</ref> The organization, whose operators were ],<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TG2MDwAAQBAJ&q=Zwi+Migdal+crime+organization&pg=PA252|title=The New Jewish American Literary Studies|last=Aarons|first=Victoria|date=April 30, 2019|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9781108426282|pages=252|language=en|quote=The Jewish crime organization known as the Zwi Migdal.}}</ref> functioned from its foundation in the 1860s until 1939. | |||
Originally called Warsaw Jewish Mutual Aid Society, the organization changed its name to Zwi Migdal on May 7th, 1906, when the Polish Embassy made an official complaint to the Argentinian authorities regarding the use of the name Warsaw. | |||
The organisation's annual turnover was $50 million at the turn of the 20th century.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Gordon |first=Neil Perry |title=The Zwi Migdal's Reign of Terror |url=https://neilperrygordon.substack.com/p/the-zwi-migdal-s-reign-of-terror |access-date=2023-02-18 |website=neilperrygordon.substack.com |date=November 24, 2022 |language=en}}</ref> After the ], it had 400 members in Argentina, ] being its main centre of operations. It had branch offices in Brazil (], São Paulo and ]), the United States (New York City), Poland (]), South Africa, India and China.<ref name="kushnir">Kushnir, Beatriz; Baile de Máscaras, Imago Editora, São Paulo. {{ISBN|85-312-0485-2}}</ref> | |||
Zwi Migdal means "strong power" in yidish, and this name was chosen also to honor Luis Migdal, one of the first founders of the organization. | |||
During the 1920s the organisation grew to its largest-ever size. At its height, 430 individuals, acting as ] and in other criminal roles, oversaw a network of 2,000 ]s and approximately 4,000 women in Argentina alone.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3403899,00.html|title=Argentine Jewry's dark secret|date=May 25, 2007|website=Ynetnews|last1=Kupferboim|first1=Rona}}</ref> The organization's success stemmed from the fact that its members were bound by rules that were "based on order, discipline, and honesty." The network was well-organized and members cooperated closely to protect their interests.{{Citation needed|date=May 2023}} | |||
==How Zwi Migdal Operated== | |||
The Zwi Migdal Organization reached its peak in the 1920s when some 430 rufianos or pimps controlled 2000 whorehouses with 4000 women in Argentina alone. | |||
== Origin of the name == | |||
The Zwi Migdal was successful because its members were bound by internal rules that were "all based on order, discipline, and honesty." The network was well-organized and members cooperated closely to protect their interests. | |||
The organization's founders having originated from ], the group was legally registered as the ''Varsovia Jewish Mutual Aid Society'', to facilitate operations ("''Varsovia"'' is the Spanish word for Warsaw).<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UXBeBAAAQBAJ&q=Varsovia+Jewish+Mutual+Help+Society&pg=PT30|title=Sex Trafficking in Postcolonial Literature: Transnational Narratives from Joyce to Bolaño|last=Reinares|first=Laura Barberán|date=August 27, 2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781317667926|language=en}}</ref> In 1927, after the Polish envoy to Argentina filed an official complaint regarding the organization's use of the city "Warsaw" in the name, the group was renamed "''Zwi Migdal"'' in honour of Luis Zvi Migdal, one of its founders.<ref>{{cite book|last=Guy|first=Donna J|title=Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Nation in Argentina|year=1992|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2cT8CrTRVKAC&q=%22zwi+migdal%22&pg=PA129|pages=120–125|isbn=0803221398}}</ref> The name is rendered in ] as "''Cwi Migdał''".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://polona.pl/item/nasz-przeglad-organ-niezalezny-r-7-i-e-8-28-czerwca-1930-nr-179,OTQ2NTU1OA/3/#info:metadata|title=Polona|website=polona.pl|access-date=2019-03-21}}</ref> | |||
== Modus operandi == | |||
The organization lured girls and young women from Europe in several ways. For instance, a well-mannered and elegant man would appear one day in a poor Jewish shtetl (village) in Poland or Russia. He would advertise his search for nice young women to work in the houses of rich Jews in Argentina by posting an ad in the local shul (synagogue). Fearful of more pogroms and often in desperate economic circumstances, parents would give their daughters away to these gentlemen, hoping to give them a new start. Another popular ruse was to find pretty girls and offer to marry them, usually in a "stille chupah" ceremony, a Yiddish expression meaning a quick wedding ceremony performed without a rabbi. Other times the "recruiter" would arrange for a fake wedding with a fake rabbi. | |||
The organization lured girls and young women from Europe in several ways. Pindel describes one ruse in which a well-mannered and elegant-looking man would appear in a poor Jewish village in Poland or Russia.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q1NjDwAAQBAJ&q=Cwi+Migdal&pg=PT226|title=Za horyzont|last=Pindel|first=Tomasz|date=July 9, 2018|publisher=Otwarte|isbn=9788324055180|language=pl|trans-title=Beyond the horizon|quote=.. the acquisition method (women) was simple. A fancy man would appear, for example, in some small Galician town, presenting himself as a well-situated emigrant from behind the Ocean, who came to find a wife ... (pl.:..metoda pozyskiwania (kobiet) byla prosta. Sutener zjawiał się na przykład w małej Galicyjskiej miejscowości podając się za dobrze usytuowanego emigranta z za Oceanu który przyjechał znaleść sobie żone..) – see book for more.}}</ref> He would advertise his search for young women to work in the homes of wealthy Jews in Argentina by posting an advertisement in the local synagogue. Fearful of ] and often in desperate economic circumstances, parents would send their daughters away with the man, hoping that this might offer them a fresh start. | |||
The girls, mostly aged 13 to 16, packed a small bag, bid their families farewell and boarded the ships to Argentina accompanied by a stranger, certain they were off to a better future. Their training period often started on the ship and was always a cruel and brutal affair. The young virgins were broken in - raped, beaten, starved and locked in cages. Some of them were married off to local men so that they could obtain entry visas. Far from their families, without friends or knowledge of the language, they started serving men, their bodies belonging to the Jewish rufianos. | |||
Another popular ruse was to find pretty girls and marry them, usually in a quick wedding ceremony known in ] as a "''shtille chupah''".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://lublin.wyborcza.pl/lublin/1,48724,18373992,przedwojenny-gang-handlarzy-kobietami-konczyly-w-ameryce-pld.html?disableRedirects=true|title=Przedwojenny gang handlarzy kobietami. Kończyły w Ameryce Płd.|last=Kopciowski|first=Adam|trans-title=Pre-war gang of women traffickers. They ended up in South America.|access-date=2019-03-20|quote=The promise of marriage was a trick used by traffickers.}}</ref> The girls bade their families farewell and boarded ships to Argentina, believing that they were on their way toward a better future. The rape of the girls and abuse as sex slaves often started on the ship. Some of them were married off to local men so that they could obtain entry visas. | |||
Prostitutes that failed to satisfy their clients were beaten, fined or taken to work in provincial houses. Every business transaction was logged. The rufianos even held a "meat market" where newly arrived girls were paraded naked in front of traders in places such as Hotel Palestina or Cafe Parisienne. These activities went on undisturbed because they were frequented by government officials, judges and reporters. City officials, politicians and police officers were paid off. The pimps had powerful connections everywhere. | |||
Prostitutes who failed to satisfy their clients were beaten, fined, or sent to work in rural houses. Every business transaction was logged. The ruffians held a "meat market" where newly arrived girls were paraded naked in front of traders in places such as Hotel Palestina and Cafe Parisienne. These activities went on undisrupted because government officials, judges, and journalists frequented the brothels.<ref name=":0" /> City officials, politicians, and police officers were bribed. The pimps had powerful connections everywhere. The largest brothels in Buenos Aires housed as many as 60 to 80 ]s. Although there were brothels all over Argentina, most were in Buenos Aires, in the Jewish quarter on Junin Street.{{Citation needed|date=February 2014}} | |||
The largest bordellos of Buenos Aires housed as many as 60 to 80 sex slaves. There were bordellos all over Argentina, but most were in the big city, in the Jewish quarter on Junin Street. | |||
== Influence of the organization == | |||
==Rejection by the "respectable Jewish community"== | |||
The organization had arms in several countries and was a controversial presence in South America's Jewish community. It was a supporter of ] in Brazil but was attacked by Jews in ] for presenting ]. A significant number of Jews who had come to Brazil did so as ] and viewed prostitution as immoral and "impure" influences. Zwi Migdal's attempt to relocate to Rio, after events in Buenos Aires (discussed below), caused an increased battle against the group among ].<ref name="lesser">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c8JghimnHDsC&q=%22zwi+migdal%22&pg=PA35|title=Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question|first=Jeff|last=Lesser|date=January 26, 1995|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=9780520084124|via=Google Books}}</ref> | |||
As the pimps prospered, the Argentinian Jewish community rejected them. Articles in the local press condemned them and, in 1885, the community established a Jewish Association for the Protection of Women and Girls. Ads posted on Jewish quarter walls called on locals to refuse to rent to the rufianos. On their part, the pimps very much wanted to be part of the community. The wealthiest would pick a new girl every night to take to the Jewish theater, the center of Buenos Aires cultural life for Jews. | |||
In Argentina, the group's activities were at times used to bolster ], a use that also occurred in Brazil,<ref name="moser">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dAsPpUctvocC&q=%22zwi+migdal%22&pg=PA85|title=Why This World:A Biography of Clarice Lispector: A Biography of Clarice Lispector|first=Benjamin|last=Moser|date=August 4, 2009|publisher=Oxford University Press, USA|isbn=9780195385564|via=Google Books}}</ref> where the Jewish community also often opposed the organization.<ref name="agosin">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LLXo2mwXX5YC&q=%22zwi+migdal%22&pg=PA189|title=Memory, Oblivion, and Jewish Culture in Latin America|first=Marjorie|last=Agosín|date=August 17, 2009|publisher=University of Texas Press|isbn=9780292784437|via=Google Books}}</ref> More specifically the group was cited in relation to negative views of ], who were at times seen as more prone to criminality and/or ] within Argentinian society, as opposed to ].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CzOsAAAAIAAJ&q=%22zwi+migdal%22&pg=PA34|title=The "Nazi Menace" in Argentina, 1931–1947|first=Ronald C.|last=Newton|date=January 26, 1992|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=9780804719292|via=Google Books}}</ref> The Chilean ] used their crimes in claims Jews "dominated" Argentina's women and were "polluting" that nation.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8AoUz2G-GecC&q=%22zwi+migdal%22&pg=PA28|title=Las Derechas: The Extreme Right in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, 1890–1939|first=Sandra McGee|last=Deutsch|date=January 26, 1999|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=9780804745994|via=Google Books}}</ref> | |||
Despite their evil trade, Zwi Migdal members were eager for acceptance by the Jewish community, and made donations for temples and other community buildings. Response was divided among the community's leaders with some fearing that accepting 'dirty' money would legitimize the exploitation of women. One night, Nahum Sorkin, a well-known Zionist, stood outside the theater and physically stopped the rufianos from entering the Jewish theater. Next, they were banned from the synagogues, and later refused burial in the Jewish cemetery. | |||
==Splinter groups== | == Splinter groups == | ||
Zwi Migdal later split and a splinter group led by ] established its own society named ]. Once officially recognized, both associations bought plots of land on the outskirts of Buenos Aires and established their own cemeteries there. | |||
== Downfall == | |||
==Demise of the Organization== | |||
] in the 1930s.]] | |||
The rufianos' audacity eventually led to their demise. It happened when they refused to forgo their income from the work of Rachel Lieberman, a woman from ], Poland. In desperation, she contacted Superintendent ]. She had heard the man would not take Zwi Migdal bribes and was looking for ways to destroy the organization. She slipped into his office one day and gave a detailed account of the connections among the various pimps in the organization management. Her testimony was reason enough to launch an extensive investigation. Unlike previous occasions where nothing was done, this time, results of the investigation reached a judge who was also immune to Zwi Migdal bribes, Dr. Rodriguez Ocampo. | |||
The organization worked to force ], a former prostitute, to return to prostitution. Liberman had emigrated to Argentina after her husband, who died a year after her arrival, leaving her with two small sons. To support them she worked as a prostitute, until saving enough money to open an antique shop, which was later raided by local pimps who robbed her of her savings and forced her back into prostitution. There Liberman contacted the police superintendent, ], whom she had heard would not accept bribes from Zwi Migdal, and was looking for ways to destroy the organization. Slipping into his office one day, she gave detailed testimony on the workings of Zwi Migdal, thus enabling the police to launch an extensive investigation.<ref> (Visited December 3, 2011).</ref> The case was handled by an investigative judge, Rodriguez Ocampo, who also refused to be bribed. The lengthy trial ended in September 1930, with 108 criminal convictions. "The very existence of the Zwi Migdal Organization directly threatens our society," wrote Ocampo in his verdict, handing down long prison sentences. The pimps appealed their sentences from prison in January 1931, and senior Justice Ministry officials released all but three of them. After this was reported in the media, public outrage convinced the authorities to rescind the releases. Later, hundreds of pimps were deported to Uruguay, but slowly returned over the years.{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}} | |||
== Zwi Migdal in Brazil == | |||
The lengthy trial ended in September of 1930 with 108 detainees. "The very existence of the Zwi Migdal Organization directly threatens our society," Judge Ocampo wrote in his verdict, handing down long prison terms. While in prison, the pimps pulled some old strings, appealed their sentences in January 1931, and senior Justice Ministry officials released all but three from jail. After this travesty was reported in the media, public outrage convinced the authorities to reverse the discharges. Later, hundred of pimps were deported to Uruguay, slowly returning over the years, one by one. But the era of Zwi Migdal and the era of big brothels had ended. | |||
{{unreferenced section|date=March 2019}} | |||
The first boatload of young Jewish women arrived in Brazil in 1867. In 1872, the Imperial Brazilian government extradited some Jewish pimps and prostitutes, but the criminal activities continued. In Rio de Janeiro the brothels were concentrated in a few streets near downtown, in the Mangue neighborhood, a city zone where prostitution was segregated and legally authorized. As most of the prostitutes came from Poland, they were called "''polacas''" ("Polish women") and this word acquired a scornful meaning in Brazilian Portuguese language. | |||
By 1913, there were 431 brothels controlled by the Zwi Migdal in Rio de Janeiro.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Brener |first=Jayme |date=December 12, 1996 |title=Meideles of the Night |work=The Jerusalem Report |url=http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/ZwiMigdal.html#The |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100619045531/http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/ZwiMigdal.html#The |access-date=April 12, 2023|archive-date=2010-06-19 }}</ref> | |||
The prostitutes, largely illiterate, poor, and despised by the mainstream Jewish community, banded together to form their own self benevolent societies. In 1906 they formed in Rio de Janeiro their own ] (lit. Society of True Charity), formally registered as "Associação Beneficente Funerária e Religiosa Israelita" – ABFRI (Jewish Benevolent Association for Burial and Religion). This organization was created and run by women exploited by Zwi Migdal and other Jewish crime syndicates, but had no connection with criminal activities. | |||
==Literary References== | |||
* Zwi Migdal was featured in ]'s "Scum" and ]'s "The Man from Buenos Aires." | |||
That social and religious organization was created and managed mainly by the Polish-Jewish prostitutes ("''polacas''") exploited by Jewish crime syndicates. Their main goals, they wrote in the founding charter, were: "to set up a synagogue, and there practice all the ceremonies of the Jewish religion; to grant sick members in need of treatment outside the city a third-class train ticket and three pounds sterling; to grant members a third-class funeral." | |||
* Zwi Migdal is also treated in a recent novel by ]: The Tango Singer (El Cantor del Tango), Buenos Aires (2004) Grupo Editorial Planeta S.A.I.C. | |||
Using their association savings, they purchased real-state properties and founded their own cemetery in 1916 and their own synagogue in 1942. In its heyday, several Brazilian cities had their own Chesed Shel Emes associations and several rabbis, all since deceased, were employed by the communities. Rio de Janeiro's Chesed Shel Emes association was the largest one. It was led by one of their own elected freely and called "Irmã Superiora" ("superior sister"), who worn a large blue ribbon across her chest during reunions and feasts. | |||
* Zwi Migdal's cemetery is the center of ]'s The Ministry of Special Cases, NY, Knopf ed. | |||
The Buenos Aires police enforcement, led by Julio Alsogaray, dealt a heavy blow to Jewish crime syndicates that affected their activities even in Brazil. The destruction of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe during World War II eliminated the last links between South American and European Jewish crime syndicates. After 1939, the Jewish women traffic ceased, but Jewish women could still be found in the Brazilian prostitution zones until the end of the 1950s. | |||
* The life of one of the women under Zwi Migdal is the center of Ilan Sheinfeld's "The Tale of a Ring", only available in the original Hebrew מעשה בטבעת, Jerusalem, Keter publishers. | |||
Rio de Janeiro's Chesed Shel Emes had four "Irmãs Superioras" ("superior sisters"); the last one was Rebeca Freedman, also known as Rebeka Fridman or "''dona'' Beka" (Ms. Beka). The other women used to refer to her as their queen. Although born in Poland, she came to Brazil around 1916 from the United States when she was about 35 years old. Certainly she followed some connections between New York and Rio de Janeiro crime syndicates. Deeply religious, she made her mission to perform the sacred '']'' ceremony of washing the dead and provide a proper Jewish burial for all her "sisters". She died in 1984 at the age of 103. | |||
==Sources and References== | |||
Vincent, Isabel - Bodies and Souls, Harper Collins ed., New York. ISBN-10: 0060090235 / ISBN-13: 978-0060090234 | |||
The Jewish women benevolent organizations ceased to exist when all their members died, married, or moved to other cities. As no new members joined, the number of "sisters" dwindled and their association assets were eventually donated to or purchased by the "respectable" Jewish associations. As part of the bargain, some women were accepted in their final days in Jewish rest homes for elderly people, but many of them died in deep poverty in public rest homes with beggars. Some of them married Jews or non-Jewish men and were absorbed by "respectable" Brazilian society. Most of the reluctance to speak about the history of Zwi Migdal can be attributed to the fact that the prostitutes' descendants are today living a very comfortable and prominent life. | |||
Kushnir, Beatriz - Baile de Máscaras, Imago Editora, Sao Paulo. ISBN: 8531204852 | |||
=== Legacy === | |||
Glickman, Nora - The Jewish White Slave Trade and the Untold Story of Raquel Liberman | |||
{{unreferenced section|date=March 2019}} | |||
ISBN10 : 0-203-90512-1 ISBN13 : 978-0-203-90512-8 | |||
The cemeteries created by the Jewish prostitutes associations were the starting point in the recognition and interest in those women's history. They are being restored and preserved by members of the Brazilian Jewish community despite the heavy opposition of other members who feel uneasy or ashamed about the past of their friends, fellows or ancestors. In ] City, ], there is a Jewish cemetery that was recently restored. In ] City, due to municipal ordinances, almost all the Jewish women's tombs were removed in 1971 from their original place in Chora-Menino Cemetery to anonymous tombs close to the walls of the Butantã Jewish Cemetery. Recently, some members of the Jewish community respectfully engraved on each tombstone the name of each woman there buried. In Rio de Janeiro, the Chesed Shel Emes' Cemetery, located close to the Inhaúma Cemetery, with almost 800 tombs, is abandoned, but some social organizations work to protect, restore and preserve it. | |||
=== Brazilian Portuguese vocabulary === | |||
==External Links== | |||
The word "cafetão" (pimp) is derived from ],<ref name="etymology">Cunha, Antonio Geraldo da. Dicionário Etimológico da Língua Portuguesa. Editora Nova Fronteira, Rio de Janeiro, 1982.</ref> the long coat traditionally used by Eastern European Jews. {{anchor|polaca}}The word "polaca" (Polish woman) is commonly used in countries where Portuguese is spoken, but in Brazil it became extremely offensive to Polish people because it was used as synonymous to prostitute.<ref name="lesser"/><ref name="moser"/><ref name="agosin"/> So the words "polonesa" and "polonês" (Polish woman and Polish man) were created and are the only socially accepted way in Brazil to name people from Poland.<ref name="etymology"/> As French pimps mainly from ] also bought women from to work as prostitutes in Brazil, the word "''francesa''" (Frenchwoman) also suffered the same fate, but it is still used in Brazilian Portuguese without a pejorative meaning. The word "encrenca", nowadays meaning trouble, derived from the Yiddish "en krenk" (a sick one, similar to the German "ein Kranker"), and originally referred to a man with venereal diseases. | |||
* | |||
== Cultural and literary references == | |||
* | |||
The trafficking of women for sex work found mention in Yiddish literature. Among theater plays which raised the subject were Peretz Hirschbein's "Miriam" (1905–1908) and the directly focused {{ill|Leib Malach|lt=Leib Malach's|he|לייב מלאך}} "Ibergus" (1927),<ref name="Perush"/> as well as Sholem Asch's controversial 1906 play, Got fun Nekome (God of Vengeance), first presented in English in New York in 1923, causing a great scandal. Among Yiddish prose, the subject featured in ]'s ''The Man from Buenos Aires'' (Yiddish: "Der Mentsch fun Buenos Aires", 1909, English: 1987)<ref name="Perush"/><ref>{{cite book|last=Miron|first=Dan|chapter=Journey to the Twilight Zone: on Shalom Aleichem's Railroad Stories|title=The Image of the Shtetl and Other Studies of Modern Jewish Literary Imagination|publisher=Syracuse University Press|page=268|year=2000|isbn=9780815628583}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Aleichem|first1=Sholem|title=Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories|url=https://archive.org/details/tevyedairymanrai00shol|url-access=registration|year=1987|publisher=Schocken Books|location=New York|first2=Hillel|last2=Halkin|chapter=The Man from Buenos Aires}}</ref> and more recently in ]'s "Scum" (Yiddish: "Shoym", year?; English: 1991). | |||
The 1979 film '']'' by ] (based on the novel ''The Thirteenth Man'' by Murray Teigh Bloom and a screenplay by ]<ref name="Glickman2">, page 51, ], ], Volume 14, ], Volume 2130. {{ISBN|0-203-90512-1}}, {{ISBN|0-203-90605-5}}</ref>) features a woman who, taking the role of the biblical avenger ], serially kills descendants of members of the New York ] Zwi Migdal who had enslaved her grandmother. | |||
* | |||
The 1991 film '']'' by ] alludes to the activities of Zwi Migdal.<ref name="Glickman">Glickman, Nora. The Jewish White Slave Trade and the Untold Story of Raquel Liberman. Routledge, 1999. {{ISBN|0-203-90512-1}} / {{ISBN|978-0-203-90512-8}}. ()</ref> The film's heroine assumes the identity of an Eastern European woman traveling to Buenos Aires to meet a prospective husband and in the process gets herself caught up in the prostitution network. The film, however, is motivated more by ] than by indignation. | |||
* | |||
The 2001 film '']'' ("Tropical Dreams"), directed by André Sturm, also deals with the same topic, following Esther, a Jewish girl from Poland lured into a false promise of marriage, who finds herself enslaved in brothels in Rio de Janeiro from 1899 to 1904. As a background, the film shows the ] in the city. | |||
* | |||
The 2011 novel ''Korzeniec'' by Zbigniew Białas alludes to hundreds of young Jewish women being trafficked through a border of Russian Empire to Prussia (now southern Poland) by a Jewish gang. | |||
* | |||
The 2006 novel ''El infierno prometido'' by Argentine writer Elsa Drucaroff tells the story of Dina, who falls prey to the Zwi Migdal. | |||
==Background Information== | |||
The first boatload of young Jewish women arrived in Brazil in 1867; by 1913, there were 431 brothels controlled by the Zwi Migdal in downtown Rio alone. | |||
The 2019 novel ''The Third Daughter'' by Talia Carner is a penetrating look into early 20th-century sex-trafficking. In a nod to Sholem Aleichem's ''The Man from Buenos Aires,'' Carner brings us Batya, the third daughter of a dairyman in the Russian countryside, a fourteen-year-old fleeing anti-Semitic pogroms with her family. Desperate, her father leaps at the opportunity to marry Batya to a worldly, wealthy stranger who guarantees his daughter a comfortable life and passage to America. But innocent Batya soon discovers her father has been duped as she is shipped as a sex-slave to Buenos Aires, a city where Zwi Migdal operates with impunity as prostitution is not only legal, but a pillar of the growing Argentinian economy. | |||
Three women - largely illiterate, bitterly poor and despised by the mainstream Jewish community - banded together to form their own benevolent society: the Chesed Shel Ermess, or Society of Truth. At the forefront were Sophia Chamys, Rachel Liberman and Rebecca Freedman, who also managed to get to a police station, and provide testimony which helped an honest cop destroy the Zwi Migdal in Argentina in the 1930s. | |||
The 2024 novella ''The Sailor & The Porteña'' by Nicholas Warack, Zwi Migdal acts as a primary antagonist throughout the story with its members and organization referred to as "the ruffians." They are noted as a corrupt and nefarious crime syndicate with significant influence and wealth. | |||
* Sophia Chamys - was 13 when her father arranged her marriage to a well-dressed stranger from Lodz. She died at the young age of 18. Sophia's "husband" was, in fact, a wheeler-dealer in an international prostitution ring - Zwi Migdal. Chamys ended up, locked in a whorehouse, despised and shunned by the more respectable members of the city's Jewish community, which refused even to give the prostitutes proper burials. | |||
== See also == | |||
* Rebecca Freedman - became their leader (the women called her their queen) and made it her mission to perform the sacred tahara ceremony of washing the dead. Deeply religious, she died in either 1984 or 1986, at the age of 103.She was last president of the Society of Truth. | |||
{{commons category}} | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
==References== | |||
* Rachel Liberman - her statements to Lt. Julio Alsogaray, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, helped Argentinian police to dismantle the Zwi Migdal for a few months in that country. She was born in Poland, 1900 and died in Buenos Aires in 1935. | |||
{{Reflist|35em}} | |||
==Further reading== | |||
THE POLACAS ("POLISH WOMEN" in Portuguese) first organized in 1906, in Rio de Janeiro, setting up the Jewish Association for Charity, Burial and Religion (ABFRI). Their goals, they wrote in the charter, were: "To set up a synagogue, and there practice all the ceremonies of the Jewish religion. To grant sick members in need of treatment outside the city a third-class train ticket and three pounds sterling. To grant members a third-class funeral." In its heyday, the organization existed in several cities, and several rabbis, all since deceased, were in its employ. | |||
* Schalom, Myrtha. "La Polaca. Inmigraciòn, rufianes y esclavas a comienzos del siglo XX". Buenos Aires: Grupo Editorial Norma, 2003 (out of print). Republished: Buenos Aires: Galerna, 2013. {{ISBN|978-950-556-588-7}}. | |||
*Vincent, Isabel. ''Bodies and Souls'', Harper Collins ed., New York. {{ISBN|0-06-009023-5}} / {{ISBN|978-0-06-009023-4}}. | |||
*. | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Carner |first1=Talia |title=The Third Daughter |date=2019 |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=9780062896889 |language=en}} | |||
{{Organized crime groups in America}} | |||
{{Organized crime groups in New York City}} | |||
] | |||
link in french: | |||
] | |||
* | |||
] | |||
] | |||
==See also== | |||
] | |||
*] | |||
] | |||
] | ] | ||
] | |||
] | ] | ||
] | ] | ||
] | |||
] | |||
{{gang-stub}} | |||
] |
Latest revision as of 13:59, 11 January 2025
Polish Jewish human trafficking organization operating in ArgentinaCriminal organization
Named after | Luis Zwi Migdal |
---|---|
Years active | 1867–1939 |
Territory | Argentina, Brazil, Poland, South Africa, United States |
Ethnicity | Jewish |
Membership | 1,000+ |
Allies | Jewish Mob, Ashkenazum |
Zwi Migdal (Yiddish: צבי מגדל, IPA: [ˈtsvɪ mɪɡˈdal] Polish: Cwi Migdał) was a criminal organisation founded by Jews in Poland in the 19th century, based mainly in Argentina.
History
The group's main operation was the trafficking of Jewish women from Central Europe (mainly from Warsaw) into sexual slavery and forced prostitution. The organization, whose operators were Jewish, functioned from its foundation in the 1860s until 1939.
The organisation's annual turnover was $50 million at the turn of the 20th century. After the First World War, it had 400 members in Argentina, Buenos Aires being its main centre of operations. It had branch offices in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Santos), the United States (New York City), Poland (Warsaw), South Africa, India and China.
During the 1920s the organisation grew to its largest-ever size. At its height, 430 individuals, acting as pimps and in other criminal roles, oversaw a network of 2,000 brothels and approximately 4,000 women in Argentina alone. The organization's success stemmed from the fact that its members were bound by rules that were "based on order, discipline, and honesty." The network was well-organized and members cooperated closely to protect their interests.
Origin of the name
The organization's founders having originated from Warsaw, the group was legally registered as the Varsovia Jewish Mutual Aid Society, to facilitate operations ("Varsovia" is the Spanish word for Warsaw). In 1927, after the Polish envoy to Argentina filed an official complaint regarding the organization's use of the city "Warsaw" in the name, the group was renamed "Zwi Migdal" in honour of Luis Zvi Migdal, one of its founders. The name is rendered in Polish as "Cwi Migdał".
Modus operandi
The organization lured girls and young women from Europe in several ways. Pindel describes one ruse in which a well-mannered and elegant-looking man would appear in a poor Jewish village in Poland or Russia. He would advertise his search for young women to work in the homes of wealthy Jews in Argentina by posting an advertisement in the local synagogue. Fearful of pogroms and often in desperate economic circumstances, parents would send their daughters away with the man, hoping that this might offer them a fresh start.
Another popular ruse was to find pretty girls and marry them, usually in a quick wedding ceremony known in Yiddish as a "shtille chupah". The girls bade their families farewell and boarded ships to Argentina, believing that they were on their way toward a better future. The rape of the girls and abuse as sex slaves often started on the ship. Some of them were married off to local men so that they could obtain entry visas.
Prostitutes who failed to satisfy their clients were beaten, fined, or sent to work in rural houses. Every business transaction was logged. The ruffians held a "meat market" where newly arrived girls were paraded naked in front of traders in places such as Hotel Palestina and Cafe Parisienne. These activities went on undisrupted because government officials, judges, and journalists frequented the brothels. City officials, politicians, and police officers were bribed. The pimps had powerful connections everywhere. The largest brothels in Buenos Aires housed as many as 60 to 80 sex slaves. Although there were brothels all over Argentina, most were in Buenos Aires, in the Jewish quarter on Junin Street.
Influence of the organization
The organization had arms in several countries and was a controversial presence in South America's Jewish community. It was a supporter of Yiddish theatre in Brazil but was attacked by Jews in Rio de Janeiro for presenting Torah scrolls. A significant number of Jews who had come to Brazil did so as families and viewed prostitution as immoral and "impure" influences. Zwi Migdal's attempt to relocate to Rio, after events in Buenos Aires (discussed below), caused an increased battle against the group among Brazilian Jews.
In Argentina, the group's activities were at times used to bolster antisemitism, a use that also occurred in Brazil, where the Jewish community also often opposed the organization. More specifically the group was cited in relation to negative views of Eastern European Jews, who were at times seen as more prone to criminality and/or political radicalism within Argentinian society, as opposed to German Jews. The Chilean Nicolás Palacios used their crimes in claims Jews "dominated" Argentina's women and were "polluting" that nation.
Splinter groups
Zwi Migdal later split and a splinter group led by Simon Rubinstein established its own society named Ashkenazum. Once officially recognized, both associations bought plots of land on the outskirts of Buenos Aires and established their own cemeteries there.
Downfall
The organization worked to force Raquel Liberman, a former prostitute, to return to prostitution. Liberman had emigrated to Argentina after her husband, who died a year after her arrival, leaving her with two small sons. To support them she worked as a prostitute, until saving enough money to open an antique shop, which was later raided by local pimps who robbed her of her savings and forced her back into prostitution. There Liberman contacted the police superintendent, Julio Alsogaray, whom she had heard would not accept bribes from Zwi Migdal, and was looking for ways to destroy the organization. Slipping into his office one day, she gave detailed testimony on the workings of Zwi Migdal, thus enabling the police to launch an extensive investigation. The case was handled by an investigative judge, Rodriguez Ocampo, who also refused to be bribed. The lengthy trial ended in September 1930, with 108 criminal convictions. "The very existence of the Zwi Migdal Organization directly threatens our society," wrote Ocampo in his verdict, handing down long prison sentences. The pimps appealed their sentences from prison in January 1931, and senior Justice Ministry officials released all but three of them. After this was reported in the media, public outrage convinced the authorities to rescind the releases. Later, hundreds of pimps were deported to Uruguay, but slowly returned over the years.
Zwi Migdal in Brazil
This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
The first boatload of young Jewish women arrived in Brazil in 1867. In 1872, the Imperial Brazilian government extradited some Jewish pimps and prostitutes, but the criminal activities continued. In Rio de Janeiro the brothels were concentrated in a few streets near downtown, in the Mangue neighborhood, a city zone where prostitution was segregated and legally authorized. As most of the prostitutes came from Poland, they were called "polacas" ("Polish women") and this word acquired a scornful meaning in Brazilian Portuguese language. By 1913, there were 431 brothels controlled by the Zwi Migdal in Rio de Janeiro.
The prostitutes, largely illiterate, poor, and despised by the mainstream Jewish community, banded together to form their own self benevolent societies. In 1906 they formed in Rio de Janeiro their own Chesed Shel Emes (lit. Society of True Charity), formally registered as "Associação Beneficente Funerária e Religiosa Israelita" – ABFRI (Jewish Benevolent Association for Burial and Religion). This organization was created and run by women exploited by Zwi Migdal and other Jewish crime syndicates, but had no connection with criminal activities.
That social and religious organization was created and managed mainly by the Polish-Jewish prostitutes ("polacas") exploited by Jewish crime syndicates. Their main goals, they wrote in the founding charter, were: "to set up a synagogue, and there practice all the ceremonies of the Jewish religion; to grant sick members in need of treatment outside the city a third-class train ticket and three pounds sterling; to grant members a third-class funeral."
Using their association savings, they purchased real-state properties and founded their own cemetery in 1916 and their own synagogue in 1942. In its heyday, several Brazilian cities had their own Chesed Shel Emes associations and several rabbis, all since deceased, were employed by the communities. Rio de Janeiro's Chesed Shel Emes association was the largest one. It was led by one of their own elected freely and called "Irmã Superiora" ("superior sister"), who worn a large blue ribbon across her chest during reunions and feasts.
The Buenos Aires police enforcement, led by Julio Alsogaray, dealt a heavy blow to Jewish crime syndicates that affected their activities even in Brazil. The destruction of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe during World War II eliminated the last links between South American and European Jewish crime syndicates. After 1939, the Jewish women traffic ceased, but Jewish women could still be found in the Brazilian prostitution zones until the end of the 1950s.
Rio de Janeiro's Chesed Shel Emes had four "Irmãs Superioras" ("superior sisters"); the last one was Rebeca Freedman, also known as Rebeka Fridman or "dona Beka" (Ms. Beka). The other women used to refer to her as their queen. Although born in Poland, she came to Brazil around 1916 from the United States when she was about 35 years old. Certainly she followed some connections between New York and Rio de Janeiro crime syndicates. Deeply religious, she made her mission to perform the sacred tahara ceremony of washing the dead and provide a proper Jewish burial for all her "sisters". She died in 1984 at the age of 103.
The Jewish women benevolent organizations ceased to exist when all their members died, married, or moved to other cities. As no new members joined, the number of "sisters" dwindled and their association assets were eventually donated to or purchased by the "respectable" Jewish associations. As part of the bargain, some women were accepted in their final days in Jewish rest homes for elderly people, but many of them died in deep poverty in public rest homes with beggars. Some of them married Jews or non-Jewish men and were absorbed by "respectable" Brazilian society. Most of the reluctance to speak about the history of Zwi Migdal can be attributed to the fact that the prostitutes' descendants are today living a very comfortable and prominent life.
Legacy
This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
The cemeteries created by the Jewish prostitutes associations were the starting point in the recognition and interest in those women's history. They are being restored and preserved by members of the Brazilian Jewish community despite the heavy opposition of other members who feel uneasy or ashamed about the past of their friends, fellows or ancestors. In Cubatão City, São Paulo State, there is a Jewish cemetery that was recently restored. In São Paulo City, due to municipal ordinances, almost all the Jewish women's tombs were removed in 1971 from their original place in Chora-Menino Cemetery to anonymous tombs close to the walls of the Butantã Jewish Cemetery. Recently, some members of the Jewish community respectfully engraved on each tombstone the name of each woman there buried. In Rio de Janeiro, the Chesed Shel Emes' Cemetery, located close to the Inhaúma Cemetery, with almost 800 tombs, is abandoned, but some social organizations work to protect, restore and preserve it.
Brazilian Portuguese vocabulary
The word "cafetão" (pimp) is derived from caftan, the long coat traditionally used by Eastern European Jews. The word "polaca" (Polish woman) is commonly used in countries where Portuguese is spoken, but in Brazil it became extremely offensive to Polish people because it was used as synonymous to prostitute. So the words "polonesa" and "polonês" (Polish woman and Polish man) were created and are the only socially accepted way in Brazil to name people from Poland. As French pimps mainly from Marseille also bought women from to work as prostitutes in Brazil, the word "francesa" (Frenchwoman) also suffered the same fate, but it is still used in Brazilian Portuguese without a pejorative meaning. The word "encrenca", nowadays meaning trouble, derived from the Yiddish "en krenk" (a sick one, similar to the German "ein Kranker"), and originally referred to a man with venereal diseases.
Cultural and literary references
The trafficking of women for sex work found mention in Yiddish literature. Among theater plays which raised the subject were Peretz Hirschbein's "Miriam" (1905–1908) and the directly focused Leib Malach's [he] "Ibergus" (1927), as well as Sholem Asch's controversial 1906 play, Got fun Nekome (God of Vengeance), first presented in English in New York in 1923, causing a great scandal. Among Yiddish prose, the subject featured in Sholem Aleichem's The Man from Buenos Aires (Yiddish: "Der Mentsch fun Buenos Aires", 1909, English: 1987) and more recently in Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Scum" (Yiddish: "Shoym", year?; English: 1991).
The 1979 film Last Embrace by Jonathan Demme (based on the novel The Thirteenth Man by Murray Teigh Bloom and a screenplay by David Shaber) features a woman who, taking the role of the biblical avenger Goel Hadam, serially kills descendants of members of the New York Lower East Side Zwi Migdal who had enslaved her grandmother.
The 1991 film Naked Tango by Leonard Schrader alludes to the activities of Zwi Migdal. The film's heroine assumes the identity of an Eastern European woman traveling to Buenos Aires to meet a prospective husband and in the process gets herself caught up in the prostitution network. The film, however, is motivated more by sensationalism than by indignation.
The 2001 film Sonhos Tropicais ("Tropical Dreams"), directed by André Sturm, also deals with the same topic, following Esther, a Jewish girl from Poland lured into a false promise of marriage, who finds herself enslaved in brothels in Rio de Janeiro from 1899 to 1904. As a background, the film shows the Vaccine Revolt in the city.
The 2011 novel Korzeniec by Zbigniew Białas alludes to hundreds of young Jewish women being trafficked through a border of Russian Empire to Prussia (now southern Poland) by a Jewish gang.
The 2006 novel El infierno prometido by Argentine writer Elsa Drucaroff tells the story of Dina, who falls prey to the Zwi Migdal.
The 2019 novel The Third Daughter by Talia Carner is a penetrating look into early 20th-century sex-trafficking. In a nod to Sholem Aleichem's The Man from Buenos Aires, Carner brings us Batya, the third daughter of a dairyman in the Russian countryside, a fourteen-year-old fleeing anti-Semitic pogroms with her family. Desperate, her father leaps at the opportunity to marry Batya to a worldly, wealthy stranger who guarantees his daughter a comfortable life and passage to America. But innocent Batya soon discovers her father has been duped as she is shipped as a sex-slave to Buenos Aires, a city where Zwi Migdal operates with impunity as prostitution is not only legal, but a pillar of the growing Argentinian economy.
The 2024 novella The Sailor & The Porteña by Nicholas Warack, Zwi Migdal acts as a primary antagonist throughout the story with its members and organization referred to as "the ruffians." They are noted as a corrupt and nefarious crime syndicate with significant influence and wealth.
See also
References
- Reinares, Laura Barberán (August 27, 2014). Sex Trafficking in Postcolonial Literature: Transnational Narratives from Joyce to Bolaño. Routledge. ISBN 9781317667926.
..the Zwi Migdal mainly imported Jewish woman (especially from Warsaw)..
- ^ Yarfitz, Mir (February 8–9, 2009). "Caftens, Kurvehs, and Stille Chuppahs: Jewish Sex Workers and their Opponents in Buenos Aires, 1890–1930". Perush: An Online Journal of Jewish Scholarship and Interpretation. Volume 2. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
- Aarons, Victoria (April 30, 2019). The New Jewish American Literary Studies. Cambridge University Press. p. 252. ISBN 9781108426282.
The Jewish crime organization known as the Zwi Migdal.
- ^ Gordon, Neil Perry (November 24, 2022). "The Zwi Migdal's Reign of Terror". neilperrygordon.substack.com. Retrieved February 18, 2023.
- Kushnir, Beatriz; Baile de Máscaras, Imago Editora, São Paulo. ISBN 85-312-0485-2
- Kupferboim, Rona (May 25, 2007). "Argentine Jewry's dark secret". Ynetnews.
- Reinares, Laura Barberán (August 27, 2014). Sex Trafficking in Postcolonial Literature: Transnational Narratives from Joyce to Bolaño. Routledge. ISBN 9781317667926.
- Guy, Donna J (1992). Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Nation in Argentina. University of Nebraska Press. pp. 120–125. ISBN 0803221398.
- "Polona". polona.pl. Retrieved March 21, 2019.
- Pindel, Tomasz (July 9, 2018). Za horyzont [Beyond the horizon] (in Polish). Otwarte. ISBN 9788324055180.
.. the acquisition method (women) was simple. A fancy man would appear, for example, in some small Galician town, presenting himself as a well-situated emigrant from behind the Ocean, who came to find a wife ... (pl.:..metoda pozyskiwania (kobiet) byla prosta. Sutener zjawiał się na przykład w małej Galicyjskiej miejscowości podając się za dobrze usytuowanego emigranta z za Oceanu który przyjechał znaleść sobie żone..) – see book for more.
- Kopciowski, Adam. "Przedwojenny gang handlarzy kobietami. Kończyły w Ameryce Płd" [Pre-war gang of women traffickers. They ended up in South America.]. Retrieved March 20, 2019.
The promise of marriage was a trick used by traffickers.
- ^ Lesser, Jeff (January 26, 1995). Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520084124 – via Google Books.
- ^ Moser, Benjamin (August 4, 2009). Why This World:A Biography of Clarice Lispector: A Biography of Clarice Lispector. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 9780195385564 – via Google Books.
- ^ Agosín, Marjorie (August 17, 2009). Memory, Oblivion, and Jewish Culture in Latin America. University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292784437 – via Google Books.
- Newton, Ronald C. (January 26, 1992). The "Nazi Menace" in Argentina, 1931–1947. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804719292 – via Google Books.
- Deutsch, Sandra McGee (January 26, 1999). Las Derechas: The Extreme Right in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, 1890–1939. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804745994 – via Google Books.
- Kupferboim, Rona. Argentine Jewry's Dark Secret. Article in Ynetnews.com about Ilan Sheinfeld's book. Published May 25th, 2007 (Visited December 3, 2011).
- Brener, Jayme (December 12, 1996). "Meideles of the Night". The Jerusalem Report. Archived from the original on June 19, 2010. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
- ^ Cunha, Antonio Geraldo da. Dicionário Etimológico da Língua Portuguesa. Editora Nova Fronteira, Rio de Janeiro, 1982.
- Miron, Dan (2000). "Journey to the Twilight Zone: on Shalom Aleichem's Railroad Stories". The Image of the Shtetl and Other Studies of Modern Jewish Literary Imagination. Syracuse University Press. p. 268. ISBN 9780815628583.
- Aleichem, Sholem; Halkin, Hillel (1987). "The Man from Buenos Aires". Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories. New York: Schocken Books.
- The Jewish White Slave Trade and the Untold Story of Raquel Liberman, page 51, Nora Glickman, Latin American Studies, Volume 14, Garland Reference Library of Social Science, Volume 2130. ISBN 0-203-90512-1, ISBN 0-203-90605-5
- Glickman, Nora. The Jewish White Slave Trade and the Untold Story of Raquel Liberman. Routledge, 1999. ISBN 0-203-90512-1 / ISBN 978-0-203-90512-8. (online)
Further reading
- Schalom, Myrtha. "La Polaca. Inmigraciòn, rufianes y esclavas a comienzos del siglo XX". Buenos Aires: Grupo Editorial Norma, 2003 (out of print). Republished: Buenos Aires: Galerna, 2013. ISBN 978-950-556-588-7.
- Vincent, Isabel. Bodies and Souls, Harper Collins ed., New York. ISBN 0-06-009023-5 / ISBN 978-0-06-009023-4.
- The Case of the Zwi Migdal Society.
- Carner, Talia (2019). The Third Daughter. HarperCollins. ISBN 9780062896889.
Organized crime groups in the Americas | |
---|---|
Argentina | |
Bolivia | |
Brazil | |
Canada | See: Organized crime groups in Canada |
Caribbean |
|
Colombia | |
El Salvador | |
Mexico |
|
United States | See: Organized crime groups in the United States |
Venezuela | |
- 1860s establishments in Argentina
- 1939 disestablishments in Argentina
- Organizations established in the 1860s
- Organizations disestablished in 1939
- Slave trade
- Transnational organized crime
- Organized crime groups in Argentina
- Organized crime groups in Brazil
- Prostitution
- Jewish Argentine history
- Sex trafficking
- Jewish organisations based in Argentina