Zwi Migdal

Zwi Migdal, also known as Zvi Migdal, was a criminal organization of Jewish gangsters who specialized in worldwide prostitution and trafficking of women who came from the shtetls in Eastern Europe.

The Zwi Migdal organization operated from the 1860s to 1939. In its heyday, after the First World War, it had four hundred members in Argentina alone. Its annual turnover was fifty million dollars at the turn of the century. Its center was Buenos Aires, with branch offices in other locations in Argentina, Brazil; New York City, NY; Warsaw, Poland; South Africa; India; and China.

The Zwi Migdal Organization reached its peak in the 1920s when some 430 rufianos, or pimps, controlled 2,000 brothelss with 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 and meaning of the name

Originally called the Warsaw Jewish Mutual Aid Society, the organization changed its name to Zwi Migdal on May 7, 1906, when the Polish ambassador made an official complaint to the Argentinian authorities regarding the use of the name Warsaw.

The association's name was chosen to honor Zvi Migdal, who was also known as Luis Migdal, one of the founders of the organization. It also means "strong power" in Yiddish or "deer's tower" in Hebrew.

Modus operandi

The organization lured girls and young women from Europe in several ways. For instance, a well-mannered and elegant-looking man would appear in a poor Jewish shtetl (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 ad in the local synagogue. Fearful of pogroms and often in desperate economic circumstances, the trusting parents would send their daughters away with these men, hoping to give them a fresh start.

Another popular ruse was to find pretty girls and offer to marry them, usually in a ceremony known as a "stille chupah" (Yiddish expression meaning a quick wedding ceremony performed without a rabbi). At other times, the recruiter would arrange for a fake wedding with a fake rabbi. The girls, aged mostly 13 to 16, packed a small bag, bade their families farewell and boarded ships to Argentina, believing that they were on their way toward a better future. However, they soon learned the bitter truth. Their period of training as sex slaves, which often started on the ship, was cruel and brutal. 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, with no friends or knowledge of the language, they went to work, their bodies belonging to the Jewish rufianos.

Prostitutes who failed to satisfy their clients were beaten, fined or sent to work in provincial houses. Every business transaction was logged. The rufianos held a "meat market" in which newly arrived girls were paraded naked in front of traders in places such as the Hotel Palestina or Cafe Parisienne.

These activities went on undisturbed because the brothels were frequented by government officials, judges and journalists. City officials, politicians and police officers were bribed. The pimps had powerful connections everywhere.

The largest brothelss 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.

Rejection by the "respectable Jewish community"

As the pimps prospered, the Argentinian Jewish community rejected them. Articles condemning the rufianos appeared in the local press, and in 1885, the community established a Jewish Association for the Protection of Women and Girls. Ads posted on the walls of the Jewish quarter warned locals not to rent to the rufianos. Nevertheless, the pimps aspired to be part of the community. The wealthiest of them would select a new girl every night to take to the Jewish theater, which was the center of Jewish cultural life in Buenos Aires.

Despite their trade, Zwi Migdal members donated funds for the construction of synagogues and other community buildings. Community leaders were divided as to the attitude that they should take toward the donations, 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 synagogues, and later refused burial in the Jewish cemetery.

plinter 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 rufianos' audacity eventually led to their downfall when they tried to prevent Rachel Lieberman (Łódź, Poland 1900-Buenos Aires, Argentina 1935), a former prostitute, from going into business. She had emigrated with her husband to Argentina, but he soon died, leaving her with two infant sons. Her in-laws forced her to work as a prostitute for five years. Afterwards, she used her savings to open an antique shop which was raided by local pimps, who did not want to allow a former prostitute to become an independent businesswoman.

In desperation, Lieberman contacted 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 a detailed account of the connections among the various pimps in the organization management. Her testimony was sufficient to launch an extensive investigation. Unlike previous occasions where little or nothing was accomplished, the results of the investigation reached a judge, Dr. Rodriguez Ocampo, who was also immune to Zwi Migdal bribes.

A lengthy trial ended in September 1930 with 108 convictions. "The very existence of the Zwi Migdal Organization directly threatens our society," Judge Ocampo wrote 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, one by one.

Jewish crime syndicates and benevolent associations in Brazil

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. By 1913, there were 431 brothels controlled by the Zwi Migdal in Rio de Janeiro. They were concentrated in a few streets near downtown, in the "Mangue" neighborhood, a city zone where prostitution was commonplace and legally authorized.

The prostitutes, who were mostly illiterate, destitute and despised by the mainstream Jewish community, banded together to form their own mutual-aid societies. In 1906 in Rio de Janeiro, they formed the Chesed Shel Emes or Society of True Charity, formally registered as Associação Beneficente Funerária e Religiosa Israelita - ABFRI - (Jewish Benevolent Association for Burial and Religion). Despite their troubled lives and social handicaps, they never forgot that they were Jews. Although this organization was created and run by women who were being exploited by Zwi Migdal and other Jewish crime syndicates, they had no other connection to criminal activities.

During the Jewish crime syndicates' heyday, several Brazilian cities had their own Chesed Shel Emes associations and several rabbis were employed by those communities.

Literary References

* Zwi Migdal was featured in I.B. Singer's "Scum" and Sholem Aleichem's "The Man from Buenos Aires."

* Zwi Migdal is also treated in a recent novel by Tomas Eloy Martinez: The Tango Singer (El Cantor del Tango), Buenos Aires (2004) Grupo Editorial Planeta S.A.I.C.

* Zwi Migdal's cemetery is the center of Nathan Englander's The Ministry of Special Cases, NY, Knopf ed.

* The life of one of the women exploited by 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.

* See also Patricia Suarez's trilogy "Las polacas", Colección teatro vivo, Buenos Aires 2002, several versions of which appeared on the Buenos Aires stage.

* Also treated in a 1994 novel by Horacio Vázquez Rial: Frontera Sur (Southern Frointier)

ources and References

Vincent, Isabel - Bodies and Souls, Harper Collins ed., New York. ISBN-10: 0060090235 / ISBN-13: 978-0060090234

Kushnir, Beatriz - Baile de Máscaras, Imago Editora, Sao Paulo. ISBN 8531204852

Glickman, Nora - The Jewish White Slave Trade and the Untold Story of Raquel LibermanISBN10 : 0-203-90512-1 ISBN13 : 978-0-203-90512-8

External links

* [http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3403899,00.html Argentine Jewry's dark secret (article in Ynet about Ilan Sheinfeld's book).]
* [http://www.novomilenio.inf.br/cubatao/ch054.htm As Polacas e seu Cemitério Cubatense.]
* [http://www.tapuz.co.il/blog/ViewEntry.asp?EntryId=999558 Israeli blog on Sheinfeld's book.]
* [http://polacas.blogspot.com/ Polacas - Baile de Máscaras - Beatriz Kushnir's blog (researcher of the lives of the women used by the Zwi Migdal).]
* [http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/ZwiMigdal.html The Case of the Zwi Migdal Society]
* [http://www.vreme.com/cms/view.php?id=450349 Zemlja ljudi: Zaboravljene sestre.]

ee also

* White slavery