- Dear Jeff, I am a member of one of the most
reputable families in Israel. While everybody knows that 50 years ago,
my granfather was a Rabbi and a Mayor, no one knows that my other
grandfather had brothels in the Middle East and India in the 30's.
This fact always puzzelled and bothered me, it was kept a secret in
the family. I could never comprehend that my grandather who is a
member of the 'chosen people' could possibly be a pimp. Like most
Jews, I did a search of my family's Jewish history on the world famous
website: http://www.jewishgen.org/.
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- To my surprise I found out the my grandfather was
not unique, we Jews controlled much of the prostitution business
worldwide at the beginning of the last century. I am enclosing one
particular episode which really touched me, you may want to post it in
memory of these poor Jewish women. Please do not post my name or
address.
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- A FORGOTTEN EPISODE IN JEWISH HISTORY
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- We now come of a very sordid period in Jewish
history. Late in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Jews controlled
the trade in white slavery, which is a polite way of saying
prostitution. And they did so worldwide. Reputable historians claim
Jews ran brothels in Shanghai, India, Turkey, Argentina, Brazil and
New York City.
Women for the trade were procured in the
following way: After the Eastern European pogroms, many young Jewish
women became orphans who were without skills. As orphans they lacked
dowries, which meant that arranged marriages were out of the question
for them. During those years, only men received Yeshiva education, and
if they were to marry and continue their education, they needed a wife
with a dowry.
A charming young man, with plenty of cash, would
show up in an Eastern European town and seek out a beautiful Jewish
orphan. He would connect with her through an organization and
eventually offer to marry her. After the marriage had been
consummated, he would excuse himself because he had business
commitments in another city, and leave, but not before giving his new
wife a steamship ticket to Buenos Aires and promising to meet her
there. When the wife would arrive in Buenos Aires or Rio, her husband
was nowhere to be seen, but someone presenting herself as his aunt
would meet the young woman.
Typically, these young ladies, some
not older than 18 years, without any skills, with no education and
without family, were told by these "aunts" in so many words that they
either become prostitutes or would starve to death. Although many
women faced with this situation committed suicide, others
adapted.
Because these women and their pimps were considered
"impure" by the regular Jewish community, they were ostracized. At the
end of their lives they were not allowed to be buried in the existing
Jewish cemeteries. To deal with this situation, the women and their
pimps established their own cemeteries and synagogues. Incidentally,
the word in Portuguese for pimp, is cafetão, a word derived from
kaftan, the long black silk robes worn by orthodox Jews.
In his
book "Prostitution and Prejudice: the Jewish Fight against White
Slavery - 1870-1939", Edward J. Bristow quotes my father after he had
visited several cemeteries where Jewish prostitutes were buried. My
father reported that their average age was about 20 years. My father
surreptitiously copied the wording of many tombstones. According to my
dad, a typical tombstones might be inscribed in Yiddish or Portuguese:
"Ruchelle, beloved daughter of Shmuel and Hanna O, of (the name of the
village in Eastern Europe), 1900-1920".
One unfortunate result
of Jewish-controlled white slavery was that anti-semites in Europe
used the information to paint all Jews as unworthy, as criminals, and
deserving of expulsion from their country. Fortunately, Jewish
communities that had been initially timid in dealing with this issue
eventually rallied and worked throughout the world to stamp out this
blemish, finally succeeding. So much so that today many Jews have not
heard of this shameful episode in Jewish history.
By 1960, the
Jewish prostitutes of Latin America had all but disappeared. Most had
died, as did their associates and associations.
Recent
Brazilian Jewish historians have been more charitable when writing
about these women and their plight. Brazilian historian Beatriz
Kushnir has pointed out that the women and their men, despite being
ostracized by the Jewish community, maintained their Jewish identity
by creating their own synagogues, cemeteries and even mutual help
societies that duplicated those of the regular community. According to
Kushnir, they kept Jewish holidays and some even kept the kashrut. In
recent years the Jewish community of São Paulo has allowed the
reburial in its regular cemetery of those who initially had been laid
to rest in a cemetery restricted to Jewish prostitutes. But instead of
burying them with names on their tombstones, they were given
numbers.
I have just received a clipping from a Brazilian
newspaper reporting that a director is planning a film dealing with
the story of a Jewish woman immigrant from Poland who was forced into
prostitution, etc. It is based on a book by Moacyr Scliar, a Brazilian
Jewish writer.
The woman in this film had been promised
marriage. That didn't occur on her arrival in Rio, and her only option
for survival turned out to be prostitution. Furthermore, in the story,
the woman only speaks Yiddish. The Brazilian, non-Jewish, soap-opera
actress chosen for the part has been learning to speak Yiddish for her
part in the film.
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- http://www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/BrazilianJewry.htm
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