Jan 18, 10 AM: Aleksandra Jakubczak, "(Sex)worker, Migrant, and Daughter: Migratory Prostitution and Jewish Economy in Eastern Europe, 1870-1939"

The UC Davis Jewish Studies Program is pleased to announce the first event in the New Directions in Jewish Studies 2023 Lecture Series: "(Sex)worker, Migrant, and Daughter: Migratory Prostitution and Jewish Economy in Eastern Europe, 1870-1939," with Aleksandra Jakubczak and Naomi Seidman, responding, Wednesday, January 18, 2023 at 10 AM PST via Zoom. Please find a poster, abstract, and registration link below.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Abstract:Jewish women who sold sex have been marginalized in Jewish historiography. Endowed with little or no agency, they have been primarily presented as victims of international trafficking between Eastern Europe and Argentina. Yet, they did not live on the margins of Eastern European Jewish society. If we remove the morally judgmental label of prostitutes, we discern that these women functioned in various contexts beyond the sex world – as migrants, workers, and family relatives. Once we recognize them as historical actors, we can pose and answer questions: Why did some Jewish women enter prostitution? What were their prospects after leaving this occupation? What did their families think about them selling sex? Drawing on the latest feminist research on trafficking and sex work, this lecture challenges our understanding of Eastern European Jewish women who sold sex in various countries between 1870 and 1939. It reveals that the boundary between the commercial sex and the “respectable” worlds was fluid, and being a sex worker was not indefinitely determining one’s status. Furthermore, it demonstrates that for some women, entering the trafficking system was part of a larger migratory project; for others, soliciting abroad was a family economic strategy.

Bio:Aleksandra Jakubczak is a senior historian at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw and a doctoral candidate at Columbia University in her final year, finishing a dissertation titled(Sex)worker, Migrant, and Daughter: The Jewish Economics of Sex and Mobility, 1870-1939. She works in the fields of migration studies, gender and women history, and Jewish studies, specializing in Eastern European Jewish history.Before coming to Columbia, Aleksandra received her BA and MA degrees in Hebrew Studies and History from the University of Warsaw. In the past, Aleksandra taught several courses on Eastern European Jewry at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Currently, she is a Sophie Bookhalter fellow at the Center for Jewish History and Dina Abramowicz Emerging Scholar Fellow at YIVO.

Register here.