Ezras Noshim and Unruly Bodies: Disciplining Sexual Behavior of Jewish Immigrant Women in Argentina in 1936

Abstract

This thesis is the first-ever analysis of eighteen cases related to Jewish immigrant women who came to Argentina from Eastern Europe (mainly Poland), and who, in 1936, came to the attention of Ezras Noshim, a Jewish organization in Buenos Aires. Prompted by complaints from the community that the women?s behavior violated social norms, Ezras Noshim staff recorded details of the life situations of these women, and took a variety of actions in response to ?tame? and ?civilize? their behavior. Data from Ezras Noshim?s 1936 annual report have been collected from La Fundaci?n IWO (Institute for Jewish Research) in Buenos Aires and The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (CAHJP) in Jerusalem. Complaints about the women relate to crime and prostitution, to physical abuse, and to husband abandonment. The cases reflect Ezras Noshim?s understanding of the female psyche, body, and sexuality through a framework that defined the women?s behaviors and responses to their circumstances as social and medical pathologies. The women?s problems were subjected to scientific study and their bodies were disciplined by the state of Argentina, physicians, psychiatrists and Ezras Noshim?s members. Often the women were determined to be ?mentally ill? and committed to mental hospitals. Through close readings of these case studies we can gain insights into the organized Jewish community?s understanding of these immigrant women?s behaviors, and their attempts to ?civilize? them. We can also hear the echoes of the women themselves?managed by pimps and madames, coping with pregnancy and separation/abandonment from their husbands, and sometimes simply expressing a desire for their own physical and sexual freedom. Throughout the thesis, we can observe a moral agenda and a civilizing mission of Ezras Noshim that valued primarily the sexual purity and honor of Jewish women. And in these eighteen case reports, we can also read the challenges of immigrant women?s experiences, and the differing understandings of the women?s situations, sexualities, bodies, and mental health between the medical and organized Jewish community, and the immigrant women themselves.

Brandeis University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences