Baruch atah HaShem, shelo asani aved. Traditional Jewish liturgy in the morning prayers includes the blessing “Blessed are you Lord, that you have not made me a slave.” It is one among many blessings in the morning prayers that have been worked and reworked to match society’s sensibilities. This blessing is particularly problematic today, because … More »
Category Archives: A Jewish Lens on Trafficking
The Community Coalition Against Human Trafficking
Sadly, modern-day slavery is a pressing and growing problem even in East Tennessee. By most accounts, labor-slavery predominates over sexual-exploitation here, and most slaves are trafficked domestically, rather than imported from abroad. I would like to tell you briefly about an organization with which I work: I recently joined the board of the Community Coalition … More »
Is She Your Sister?
In the dry desert heat on the road to the river Nile, a foreign man and a foreign woman attract the stares of the local gentry. The oppressive sun has gotten to the locals. They are thirsty, they are tired, and their minds are muddled, creating an explosion of conflicting thoughts and emotions, whims of … More »
The Breadth of Trafficking
For many years, there has been a widely held but erroneous assumption that there are no important distinctions between trafficking and sex work. Many people routinely assume that sex workers must be trafficked, or at least coerced in some way. In the same way, their awareness of human trafficking begins and ends with sexual slavery. … More »
Human Rights and Trafficking
Anti-trafficking advocates often speak of the need to protect the “human rights” of trafficked persons, while the U.S. government touts its “victim-centered” approach to the problem. These catchphrases convey the genuine concern that trafficking elicits on the global stage, as tales of child labor, sexual coercion, and beatings in the workplace horrify a well-meaning public. … More »
Holly
Directed by: Guy Moshe; Written and Produced by: Guy Jacobsen; Produced by: Adi Ezroni; Released by: Priority Films; Running time: 90 minutes Holly is an intimate film with a global mission. Spurred to action by the five-year-old girls he saw forced into prostitution in Cambodia, writer and producer Guy Jacobsen created the film to raise … More »
Everyday Traffic
In 2008, the U.S. State Department ranked Israel among countries that do not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. Trafficking women into prostitution thrives because of the enormous demand, estimated at more than a million monthly visits to brothels by men from all sectors of Israeli society. How do we … More »
“A Woman is Acquired”: Slavery and Jewish Sexual Ethics
I begin with a quote from M. Finley, scholar of Greco-Roman slavery in antiquity, which will serve as a proof-text for addressing slavery and rabbinic Judaism: “It is noteworthy how much of the current debate about American slavery moves beyond disagreement about the immediate data and their interpretation to ‘other’ matters, to Catholicism and Protestantism, … More »
Trafficking, Through a Jewish Lens
Jodi Jacobson & Ruth Messinger offer a Jewish lens on trafficking. “Human trafficking places people in conditions of or akin to slavery. Trafficked persons are made vulnerable …because they already live in conditions of economic and social marginalization so desperate they are willing to believe promises made by traffickers of a better life elsewhere, irrespective of the lack of evidence for these promises or the trustworthiness of their source. … More »