Prostitution in the Land of the Maccabees: Trafficking in Women in Israel

By CHARLOTTE HONIGMAN-SMITH

In Monday the Rabbi Took Off, Harry Kemelman's famous detective Rabbi Small reminds his wife of how shocked she was when she first began to read Israeli newspapers and found reports of burglars named Baruch and prostitutes named Rachel. Without such authentically Jewish lawbreakers, he assures her, "it would not be a society that had been established here, but a museum..."

Today, the prostitute in Tel Aviv is more likely to be named Olga than Rachel, and she's not an Israeli, or in Israel legally. She's one of the more than 2,000 to 2,500 women from former Soviet republics brought into Israel by international traffickers to feed a $450 million-a-year prostitution industry centered around Tel Aviv. The money paid for her body goes to the man she's been sold to. Assault and rape are common ways of keeping "employees" in line in this business, and the only way a woman will leave Israel's sex industry is if she comes to the attention of the Israeli authorities who will deport her, penniless and traumatized, back to Eastern Europe.

With all due respect to Rabbi Small, this ongoing atrocity is not making Israel a better society, no matter how like other nations it may make her.

Israeli activists, trying to address trafficking as a human rights issue, have had to begin from the ground up. Israeli authorities have dealt with the problem as one of illegal entry into the country, an approach that has left women who are already enslaved and terrorized highly vulnerable, while their exploiters are largely untouched. Organizations such as the Israel Religious Action Center, the Israel Women's Network and others are trying to organize legal assistance and public support for effective help for women trapped in Israel's sex industry and a harsher response to trafficking and violation of human rights. They're making some headway, but it's slow going. And so far, the American Jewish community has been silent on the issue.

Trafficking in Israel does not appear on the "key issue" lists of Hadassah, Na'amat, or my local Federation. It should. This should become a central issue for American Jewish women's organization, and for all American Jews who believe that Israel must continue to create a just, as well as a Jewish, society. I spend much of my time working on various liberal Jewish causes, and I am constantly being asked to lend my voice, my time and my money to any number of causes to improve Israel. So far, trafficking has not been one of them.

Very rarely, a particularly horrific story will make its way from the Israeli press to American Jewish listserves. When the most recent of these motivated me to get out there and see what I could do to help, I discovered that there is apparently no Jewish organization in the United States or Canada working to raise awareness of trafficking issues in Israel, or bring American Jewish money and influence to bear on the situation.

Why should this be an issue for the American Jewish community? After all, most of the women affected are not Jewish. This is an international problem, not one specific to Israel. Italy, Turkey and Greece are all major destination countries for trafficked women. Should it be "our" concern only because it happens in Israel?

Yes, and no. It should be our concern because we have concern for Israel. Because a fine human rights record, and the means to achieve that record are among the things we want for Israel. Because women should not be bought and sold. Because in a country where women are bought and sold, all women will be seen as things, not people. Because I, and a great many other American Jews, love Israel and justice, and wish to keep them together. Because I, and a great many other women love women, and wish to keep them safe.

Interviewed by the press at a recent demonstration to pressure the Tel Aviv police department to enforce laws against pimping, Leah Gruenpeter Gold, one of the organizers of the protest, told the press that "police say that they can't do anything because there's no interest." A loud voice announcing that interest must be heard from as many quarters as possible.

In this freedom-fighting-holiday season, here are action suggestions:

• Read up on the issue. Consult the resources below, more detailed material is available through the Israel Women's Network.
• Join the IWN, and the IRAC. Join their listserves and keep informed on new developments. Write a check if you can. Join US organizations focused on trafficking and add to their information about the situation in Israel.
• Begin to speak out about Israel's sex industry in your Jewish life. Call a meeting at your synagogue, or your Federation, bring it up at a board meeting. There may be no central organization, but if trafficking begins to turn up as a topic on a local level, it raises awareness, and builds support. Keep raising the issue.
• Sisterhood should be powerful. Let's see what we can do, one step at a time.

Resources/info:

• The Israel Women's Network has done extensive research and legal advocacy work on the issue of trafficking to Israel. Their website, www.iwn.org.il, has an English-language mirror page, contains information about both the current trafficking situation in Israel and the work IWN is doing, both in the legal field and through grassroots organizing. (Their e-mail address is iwn@netvision.net.il if their website is down.)
• The Israel Religious Action Center's site, www.irac.org, has an English-language mirror page, and their Social Action section includes links to a number of excellent recent articles on trafficking. They are working with IWN's legal branch to create anti-trafficking legislation in Israel, and demand that those laws now in effect be enforced.
• The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women's web page has a section on Israel, found at http://www.catwinternational.org/factbook/Israel.php.
• Donna Hughes, director of the Women's Studies Department of the University of Rhode Island, has a number of good articles on international trafficking available on the web through her URI page, www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes. In particular, see 'The "Natasha" Trade: The Transnational Shadow Market of Trafficking in Women'.