ALARMED BY THESE developments and fearing a reprise of the horrendous anti-Semitism from which they’d fled, upstanding Jews in South America opposed this immorality that tainted them all. They shunned the pimps and prostitutes, blocked their access to synagogues, and refused to bury these tme’yim (sullied, impure) in their cemeteries. Local Jewish benevolent and charity organizations not only refused to extend services to prostitutes and their children, but also forbade any discussion of their cases at their meetings. However, the Jewish communities’ efforts to discredit the pimps, refuse their generous donations to the synagogues and Yiddish theaters, and engage with the authorities to limit Zwi Migdal’s influence were futile in Argentina, where a 1908 law allowed unlimited recruitment of prostitutes to brothels, further legalizing ownership of “white slaves.” At times, in both Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, the conflict between the two Jewish factions escalated into violent confrontations.

While ownership of prostitutes was legal, it was subject to restrictions such as thrice-weekly medical checkups, providing the women with clean living conditions, allowing them freedom of movement, and giving them the right to collect and keep their earnings—none which was met by the pimps. Therefore in some cases, subjugated women managed to lodge an official complaint. In 1896, eighteen-year-old Sophia Chamys, after five years of beatings and betrayals by her husband, Isaac Boorosky, spoke to a policeman in the Fourth Precinct in Rio de Janeiro. She had tried to complain once before, when her husband trafficked her in Buenos Aires, but got no traction with the police there. This time, the policeman wrote down her lengthy story. Boorosky was arrested—then promptly released. In 1910, in Buenos Aires, Rosa Schwartz, a.k.a. Lili of the Jewels, threatened to expose Zwi Migdal and was murdered. Ester K., Irena A., and Reise K. (full last names not recorded) were turned away from the police station when each independently attempted to file a complaint. In retaliation, their pimps sold them to brothels in the interior of the country. In Brazil, Klara Adam denounced her pimp, Sigmond Richter, with documents. Her testimony “evaporated” and, just like what happens to a woman in this novel, a “professor” penned a condemning letter to her family in Poland, shutting down her escape route back home.

WHAT FINALLY BROUGHT Zwi Migdal to its knees?