The Impure

Daniel Najensons personal and trenchant documentary The Impure investigates the institutionalization of Jewish prostitution in Argentina in the early 20th century During the wave of Eastern European Jewish emigration thousands of Jewish women were lured with promises of wealth to Argentinian brothels The prostitutes and their pimpsin some cases the husbands of the prostituteswere also newly emigrated Jewish men who quickly developed an expansive flourishing underworld in Buenos Aires They were seen as the impure provoking the shame of the Argentinian Jewish community But as Najenson illustrates by digging up revelations of his own familys history the impure were inextricably woven into the social and political fabric of ArgentinianJewish life