Celebrating the Day of the Girl; Two Hewlett High students honored

Two Hewlett High School students were honored and the audience that gathered at the Hewlett-East Rockaway Jewish Centre heard from author Talia Carner at the National Council of Jewish Women-Peninsula Section event on Sept. 30.

Sophia Gilleeny and Benjamin Tsukerman, serving as student advocates, were recognized for having written letters to elected officials for them to proclaim Oct. 11 the Day of Girl.

Day of the Girl, which is marked across the globe, aims to promote the empowerment of girls everywhere and advocate for them to attain basic rights such as bodily autonomy and education.

Carner spoke about the more than 150,000 Jewish girls who left Europe in the late 19th century and the early 1900s to flee pogroms, poverty and strife, and dreamed of America, but fell to the false promises of marriages and jobs by the Zwi Migdal.

A legal traffickers union, the Zwi Migdal operated with impunity across South America for 70 years and faced the women into prostitution.

In her book, “The Third Daughter,” Carner revealed how the Jewish community shunned these women. She also spoke on what could be done today to help abolish modern human enslavement.