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Buenos Aires to rename subway station after Jewish woman who famously stood up to sex traffickers
(JTA) – The city of Buenos Aires will rename a major subway station in honor of Raquel Liberman, the Jewish woman who played a critical role in the dismantling of an infamous Argentine sex-trafficking ring and in the move to outlaw prostitution in the country.
According to La Nación, the Callao station in the upscale Recoleta neighborhood will soon be known as Callao – Raquel Liberman with new signage that tells the story of the sex worker who stood up against the Jewish organized crime network known as Zwi Migdal.
Born in what is now Ukraine in 1900 and raised in Poland, Liberman immigrated to Buenos Aires in 1922, joining a wave of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe to South America. She arrived with two small children, hoping to reunite with her husband who immigrated ahead of them and start a new life. But by the time her ocean liner docked in Buenos Aires, her husband had become sick with tuberculosis. He died a few months later.
Becoming a sex worker was the only option for the 23-year-old who needed to support herself and her children. She worked in a brothel under Zwi Migdal as one of hundreds of prostitutes controlled by the group. As in much of the rest of the world, the prostitution business was legal in Argentina as long as the women participated voluntarily. But Zwi Migdal would deceive women, typically by luring them from Eastern Europe under false promises of employment or marriage and then ensnaring them in sex work once they arrived in Buenos Aires.
Eventually, Liberman saved up what she thought would be enough money to buy freedom from her pimps, but they refused to grant her independence. She faced threats, harassment and theft as she tried to establish her life anew.
In 1929, Liberman turned to the police and complained about Zwi Migdal. A crusading police chief and criminal magistrate took up her case and launched a crackdown that included arrests and deportations of hundreds of Zwi Migdal members and the confiscation of property belonging to the organization. A much-publicized trial brought an end to the criminal network in 1935, the same year that Argentina banned prostitution.
A cache of letters and documents belonging to Liberman that surfaced in 1996 helped galvanize a wave of historians, filmmakers and novelists who would explore Liberman’s story and its historical context.
“Many historical investigations have given an account of the life of Raquel Liberman who was brought to our country a victim of deception and prostitution,” said Patricia Vischi, a member of Buenos Aires legislative council, who promoted the drive to rename the station. “She courageously faced the most powerful human trafficking network in Argentina.”
In 2020, the city recognized Liberman with a plaque dedicated to her memory placed on the street close to where a brothel she worked in was located, in the Jewish neighborhood of Once.
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Iran Currency Plunges to Record Lows Amid Escalating US Tensions
ILLUSTRATIVE: The Iranian flag waves in front of the IAEA headquarters before the beginning of a board of governors meeting, in Vienna, Austria, March 1, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Lisi Niesner
Iran’s currency fell on Saturday to a new all-time low against the US dollar after the country’s supreme leader rejected talks with the United States and President Donald Trump moved to restore his “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran.
The rial plunged to 892,500 to the dollar on the unofficial market on Saturday, compared with 869,500 rials on Friday, according to the foreign exchange website alanchand.com. The bazar360.com website said the dollar was sold for 883,100 rials. Asr-e-no website reported the dollar trading at 891,000 rials.
Facing an official inflation rate of about 35%, Iranians seeking safe havens for their savings have been buying dollars, other hard currencies, gold or cryptocurrencies, suggesting further headwinds for the rial.
The dollar has been gaining against the rial since trading around 690,000 rials at the time of Trump’s re-election in November amid concerns that Trump would re-impose his “maximum pressure” policy against Iran with tougher sanctions and empower Israel to strike Iranian nuclear sites.
Trump in 2018 withdrew from a nuclear deal struck by his predecessor Barack Obama in 2015 and re-imposed U.S. economic sanctions on Iran that had been relaxed. The deal had limited Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, a process that can yield fissile material for nuclear weapons.
Iran’s rial has lost more than 90% of its value since the sanctions were reimposed in 2018.
The post Iran Currency Plunges to Record Lows Amid Escalating US Tensions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Envoy’s ‘Zionist’ Ring Sends Shockwaves on Social Media
Lebanon’s army chief Joseph Aoun walks after being elected as the country’s president at the parliament building in Beirut, Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
i24 News – A photo showing US President Donald Trump’s deputy Middle East envoy donning a ring embellished with the Star of David to a meeting with Lebanon’s leader triggered outrage in Arabic social and broadcast media.
As Morgan Ortagus, who is Jewish, shook hands with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, her Star of David ring was visible in the frame, sparking accusations such as her being “more Zionist than her predecessors.”
Her direct superior, Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, is likewise Jewish-American, as is his predecessor Amos Hochstein, who was born in Jerusalem and served in the Israel Defense Forces.
Ortagus is the first senior Trump admin official to visit Lebanon amid the fragile ceasefire agreed by Israel and the Lebanon-based Shiite jihadists of Hezbollah.
The post US Envoy’s ‘Zionist’ Ring Sends Shockwaves on Social Media first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UK: Pro-Palestinian Activists Applied for a March Permit on Oct 7 as Massacre Was Ongoing
Supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir at a pro-Hamas rally in London. Photo: Reuters/Martin Pope
i24 News – Anti-Israeli activists in Britain applied for a permit to stage a demonstration through London on the morning of October 7, 2023, as Gazan jihadists were rampaging through southern Israel and slaughtering civilians, the Daily Telegraph reported.
At 12:50 PM, as the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust was still ongoing, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) notified the Metropolitan Police that they intended to hold a rally the following week.
Reports and videos of the Hamas-led onslaught began appearing on social media, and Israeli and then international broadcast media, several hours earlier.
“The Met was contacted on Saturday Oct 7 at approximately 12.50pm via telephone call and informed of the intention to protest,” a police spokesman was quoted by the Telegraph as saying. “The Met committed this to our systems on the same day and are satisfied being contacted by telephone was a sufficient means in which to notify the MPS as the event was taking place seven days after notification.”
The group’s spokesperson defended the move, telling the Telegraph it was “clear” as early as Saturday noon that “the Israeli attacks on Gaza would be of an indiscriminate violence we had not witnessed before, and that 2.3 million people in Gaza – more than 50 percent of them children – were at severe risk.”
The post UK: Pro-Palestinian Activists Applied for a March Permit on Oct 7 as Massacre Was Ongoing first appeared on Algemeiner.com.