The Jewish White Slave Trade and the Untold Story of Raquel Liberman

by Nora Glickman

This book recounts the events involving Raquel Liberman, an impoverished immigrant to Argentina that was forced by circumstances into prostitution, and the powerful Zwi Migdal, which controlled the recruitment and deployment of Jewish prostitutes in Argentina while maintaining mutually profitable relations with corrupt politicians and policemen. Liberman's story is presented as an example of individual courage and determination in the face of the violence and corruption of the prostitution business. Her struggle with the Zwi Migdal and triumphant public victory over her oppressors was widely publicized in newspapers and magazines, and was a political cause celebre in its time. This book gives readers an intimate view of how the affair caught the public imagination, and was interpreted and transformed by the artistic imagination.

204 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1999

About the author

Nora Glickman is a playwright and short story writer, a critic and a translator. She is also a professor at Queens College and at the Graduate Center, CUNY, where she teaches courses on comparative and Latin American literature, Hispanic cinema, Jewish studies, theatre and translation. She received her M.A. in Spanish Literature at Columbia University and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at N.Y.U.
Her carreer combines teaching with creative writing, criticism and translation. Her critical work (articles, chapters in anthologies, book and film reviews, interviews, encyclopedias and dictionaries) has appeared in national and international journals. Her short stories and plays have been produced in several countries in Spanish French and English, and published in a number of North and South American anthologies. Four of her plays are gathered in her Antología bilingue/Bilingual anthology. Her play Suburban News received the Jerome Award and was performed at the Theatre for the New City in New York. Dr. Glickman is President of the Association of Professors of Yiddish, and has been Associate Editor of Modern Jewish Studies/Yiddish since 1998. She is a Member of the Board of Directors of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association, and co-editor of the semi-annual LAJSA Bulletin. She is Second Vice president of the CUNY Academy for the Humanities and the Sciences, where she coordinates the Junior Faculty Colloquia. Her participation at the University Theatres has resulted in her plays productions by a number of universities including Smith College, Cornell, Barnard, Lieges, Mexico, and The Hebrew University. She was the recipient of numerous PSC-CUNY Awards and of the President’s Award for Innovative Teaching at Queens College.

Reviews

[Nechama · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was expecting this to be a book about Raquel Liberman, and that’s not what it was. It’s a book with some background about white slavery in Argentina, and then about 50% of it is pictures of letters sent to and by Liberman and their translations, as well as pictures of her and her family members.
A disappointing read.