Jewish Fight Against White Slavery 1875-1939 Slavery White Against Fight Jewish prostitutes, but also women ran 203 of the 289 (70 per- per- (70 289 the of 203 ran women also but prostitutes, much as sixty to seventy on holidays. Bristow reports Bristow holidays. on as and seventy day to a sixty as customers much fifty to forty service to pected that the “whole ‘business’ of prostitution is almost ex- ex- almost is 1908 prostitution of in ‘business’ reported “whole Odessa the in that Consul American the that province the in brothels licensed thirty-six the of thirty that situation political dangerous potentially a Jews, by was run this largely bordellos in pros- Christian, the of were titutes percent 78 that Considering Bristow. ward women Jewish population, the of 12 percent about tuted run by Jews. Prostitutes in lower-class houses were ex- ex- were houses lower-class in Prostitutes Jews. by run of Kherson (which included Odessa). Bristow writes writes Bristow Odessa). included (which Kherson of licensed 5,127 the of percent 22 comprised only not large loomed Jews Vilna. in percent 47 and Krakow cent) licensed brothels, according to a 1982 book, book, 1982 a to according brothels, licensed cent) clusively in the hands of the Jews.” the of hands the in clusively pogroms. and hostility interethnic in result could consti- Jews where Settlement, of Pale the in 1889, By matter a became slavery” “white the of when half 19thfirst 20th centuries, and the of half latter the in titution pov- the reflects slavery sex female against outcry rary in Warsaw were Jewish, along with 27 percent in in exploited: as the well as percent however, 27 exploiters, the among with along Jewish, were Warsaw in In world. the around leaders Jewish to concern real of erty that prevails in much of the Eastern Hemisphere. Eastern the of much in prevails that erty contempo- This Belize.” to Calcutta from brothels in selling of teenagers who are routinely held in bondage bondage in held routinely are who teenagers of selling S PROSTI ON N IO T U IT T S O R P , K O O T U York Times York 1872, for example, 17 percent of the known prostitutes prostitutes known the of 17percent example, for 1872, Jews and Prostitution and Jews tember e b m e pt e In Warsaw, sixteen of nineteen licensed brothels were were brothels licensed nineteen of sixteen In Warsaw, In Minsk, Jews ran all four licensed brothels, and and brothels, licensed four all ran Jews Minsk, In pros- into women Jewish impelled similarly Poverty M M A , “but we could largely stop the buying and and buying the stop largely could we “but , Cambodia in the January 29th, 2005 2005 29th, January the in Cambodia be around,” wrote Nicholas Kristof from from Kristof Nicholas wrote around,” be -O r e b o t c JEWISHHERITAGE OUR SECULAR , 2005 , will probably always always probably will YANKL STILLMAN YANKL , by Ed- Ed- ,by

New The

shad-khonim pensive pocket watches, who appeared in small East- East- small in appeared who watches, pocket pensive titution many years ago. Countless Jewish girls were were girls Jewish Countless ago. years many titution years For by agents of the the of agents by young women who were delighted to be lucky enough lucky be to pretty find delighted to were who them for women hard young not was to It them States. with United back take to wanted they whom bride Yiddish 1997 21st, February the Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires and York New and Aires Buenos Paolo, Sao Janeiro, de Rio em European towns and made it known, often through through often known, it made and towns European em ex- sporting men, young dressed elegantly were These to Poland, particularly Europe, Eastern from enticed pros- into women as young dragged Jews last the of one still alive, wrote Dovid Markus from Rio de Janeiro in Janeiro de Rio from Markus Dovid wrote alive, still South America or even to the the to even or America South is she If “love.” sold resi- she youth long-time her in But that knew tickets. dents lottery selling Janeiro de Cemetery. Park number The members. 135 with Association, Be- nevolent Independent York New the as 1896 in founded was caked with cheap cosmetics, stood on a comer in Rio Rio in comer a on stood cosmetics, cheap with caked were destroyed, eight people were killed and one hun- hun- one and killed were people eight destroyed, were large piece of ground in in the Washington Washington the in Brooklyn in ground of a piece bought large Association the and hundred, six to grew later workers sex for association aid mutual A Street. Allen rioted against the brothels. Forty legal and illegal ones ones illegal and legal Forty community brothels. the Jewish against Warsaw rioted outraged an 1905, in that dred were injured. were dred 1880s and flourished on the Lower East Side along along Side East Lower the on flourished and 1880s In New York, the “white slave trade” began in the the in began trade” slave “white the York, New In , n lel Jws woman Jewish elderly an (matchmakers), that they were seeking a seeking were they that (matchmakers), Tsvi Migdal Tsvi (Beauty Tower) mafia. mafia. Tower) (Beauty Forward odn medina goldene , her sad face sad her , she must be be must she , , the the , 23

Illustration by Lawrence Bush to marry a millionaire, get out of the shtetl and live in whose beauty compares to Esther’s and ends in Yid- luxury somewhere in the Americas. The bubble burst, dish: Ikh bin meshuge far dir (I am crazy for you). Yet however, on the ship heading across the ocean when Esther, like numerous other prostitutes, committed sui- they met other women who were “betrothed” to the same cide. Others died in insane asylums, or from venereal “groom.” and other diseases. The great majority died in abysmal The Tsvi Migdal mafia established centers in War- poverty. saw, Buenos Aires and New York in 1904. By the 1920s, they controlled thousands of brothels in Argentina and According to Markus, while a number of books have hundreds in Brazil. In the center of Rio de Janeiro, wrote been written about Jewish prostitution in Argentina and Markus in , the police had identified 431 Brazil, a doctoral dissertation published in 1997 by brothels, with Jewish women ranking ninth in number, Beatrice Kushnir, a young researcher in Rio, provides preceded by Brazilians, Portuguese, Spanish, French and the most documentation: The Masquerade: Jewish others. The Tsvi Migdal ring was disbanded, however, Women and Prostitution — the Polacas and Their Insti- in the 1930s, after Argentina’s police began to harass tutions for Mutual Aid. them and the Brazilians closed their borders to suspi- Polacas was the word for prostitutes from Poland cious-looking women and their “protectors.” The ar- and neighboring countries. Kushnir’s book gives lists chives of this criminal group were kept by the kehila, of women who administered the mutual aid institutions, the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) of a number of pimps, and the minutes of their meetings. Buenos Aires, but were destroyed, according to Markus, She describes how devoted the “girls” were to each when the AMIA building was blown up by terrorists in other, their readiness to help each other, and their de- 1994. sire to live a religious life. They maintained their own After the mafia was disbanded, trafficking in Jewish synagogues, luxuriously furnished — red carpets and women fell sharply, but the mutual aid institutions es- all — in Rio, Sao Paolo, Santos and Buenos Aires, and tablished by Jewish sex workers, including funeral so- they hired their own rabbis and cantors. Some “mad- cieties and cemeteries, were maintained until the 1960s. ams” were so pious that they wore shaytlen (wigs) and The largest mutual aid association, in Rio, had 1,030 observed shabes. In Sao Paolo they built a mikve (ritual members initially but dwindled to a few dozen by the bath) for themselves. One of them even had a picture time it was closed down in 1966. of the president of Israel, Chaim Weitzman, hanging on the wall over her bed. Misled Jewish women attempted to escape from cap- The young South American Jewish immigrant com- tivity, but only a few succeeded. There are documented munities were hard pressed to find ways to keep prosti- tutes out of their institutions. A particular area of con- flict was the Yiddish theater. Sex workers would buy A mutual aid association for sex workers was the best seats for the performances of prominent Yid- founded in 1896 as the New York Independent dish actors who came on tour through the cities of South Benevolent Association, with 135 members. The America. The young immigrants blockaded the ticket number later grew to six hundred, and the offices and barred entry to the <(alphonses ” (pimps) and Association bought a large piece of ground in their madams, all dressed in finery and jewelry. Fights Brooklyn in the Washington Park Cemetery. would break out, the police would intervene and the prostitutes and pimps would be driven off. The women also had their own cemeteries in Rio, cases, however, of prominent Brazilians who liberated Sao Paolo, Santos, Buenos Aires and Brooklyn. To sup- Jewish women from the brothels and married them. port these, they added a funeral society alongside their Decades ago, the well-known samba composer Morei- mutual aid association. The largest cemetery, in Rio, ra da Silva (95 years old in 1997 when Markus wrote was opened in 1906 and had 792 graves divided in four about him) composed “My Rare Jewess,” a song dedi- sections. The largest (about 80 percent) was for the mad- cated to the woman he rescued and loved for eighteen ams and their “bride maidens” (that’s how the madams years, Esther Gladkovitser. It says that no rose exists liked to refer to them). The next section was for the

24 Je w ish Cu r r en t s alphonses. The third was for children and the fourth ficked to Israel every year for the purpose of prostitu- for suicides. This cemetery was closed in 1972 and care tion. Most of the women come from Uzbekistan, of it was turned over to one of Rio’s two burial soci- Moldova, Ukraine and Russia. . . . The vast majority eties. have never engaged in prostitution before. Their aver- The last known Jewish madam in Rio, Becka (Rebec- age wage in their country of origin was $38 a month.” ca) Friedman, died in 1984 at the age of 103. She According to Levenkron, the exploitation of these reigned over the mutual aid association with an iron women is driven by “enormous client demand, cur- hand and was buried in one of Rio’s two general cem- rently estimated at a million visits to brothels per eteries. Similar data is available for the 209 graves in month. ... In one case, a brothel visit was given as a Sao Paolo, the small cemetery in Santos (totally ne- bar mitzvah present to a thirteen-year-old boy.” She glected except for the monument erected by the notes that Israel was given a poor rating by the U.S. madams and alphonses to commemorate the six mil- State Department in a report on worldwide sex traf- lion victims of the Holocaust), and the five hundred ficking, which prompted some intensification of Israeli graves in Buenos Aires. policing and legislature against prostitution. However, she writes, “we are still at the very beginning of the Israel today has become “a routine destination for process” of reform. the global trafficking of women,” according to a 1998 “The situation,” wrote David Weinberg in a 1998 Jewish Bulletin article by Leonard Fein. “The thou- article about prostitution in Israel, “is enough to make sand such women brought into Israel annually derive you cry in despair, or vomit from shame.” ■ principally from the countries of the former Soviet Union, and the way they get to Israel is that they are 6purchased,’ each one costing between ten and twenty PUFFIN FOUNDATION LTD. thousand dollars. And they are, of course, expected to repay the cost to their masters through what amounts ANNUAL GRANT SEARCH to indentured servitude — or, if you prefer the simpler and more straightforward, slavery. . . . Some are as The Puffin Foundation encourages young as fifteen, and even twelve. . . . Each woman a continuing dialogue between “... earns between $50,000 and $100,000 annually for her art and the lives of ordinary people.” pimp. The turnover of the prostitution trade in Israel We are resolute in our support of comes to some $450,000,000 a year.” those artists whose work, due to A 1998 New York Times article states that the Israeli their genre and/or social philosophy, police “estimate that there are 25,000 paid sexual trans- might have difficulty in being aired. actions every day” — this in a country with five mil- We especially encourage new artists to apply for a lion Jews and over a million Arabs. “. . . Once they grant. cross the border [into Israel] their passports will be con- Grants are made in all fields of the creative arts, fiscated [by pimps], their freedoms curtailed and what including, music, dance, theater, documentaries, little money they have taken from them at once The photography, fine arts, etc. Tropicana, in Tel Aviv’s bustling business district, is one of the busiest bordellos. The women who work Applicants may apply for a year 2006 grant in there, like nearly all prostitutes in Israel today, are Rus- writing prior to December 30th, 2005. Average grant sian. Their bosses, however, are not. 6Israelis love Rus- awards range between $1,000 to $2,500. SASE re- sian girls,’ said Jacob Golan who owns this and two quired. other clubs. 6. . . They are blonde and good-looking and different from us. . . . And they are desperate.’ ” The Puffin Foundation Ltd. Providing an update in the most recent issue of Tikkun Department J (September-October, 2005), Nomi Levenkron, legal di- 20 East Oakdene Avenue rector of the Hotline for Migrant Workers in Israel, es- Teaneck, NJ 07666-4111 timates that “between 1,000 and 3,000 women are traf­

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