The Movement for Reform Judaism

In the last few weeks Jewish homes over the world have celebrated the feast of Pesach with its theme of freedom and people in the UK have acknowledged the contribution of William Wilberforce to the abolition of slavery 200 years ago this year.  In our comfortable London homes it seems almost impossible that slavery should still exist, but exist it does.  Even in the UK slavery exists in the form of human trafficking, whether of asylum seekers forced to work under the most extreme conditions for little wage, or those trafficked to support the sex trade.

It is probably even more ironic that in the country where the majority of the population will have celebrated the feast of freedom the slave trade exists and is flourishing.  Regrettably even in Israel there is a slave trade, particularly in the field of trafficking for sexual exploitation.  Only very recently have laws been passed in Israel to outlaw the trade and even then they have not been vigorously enforced.  Over the last two years an organisation called Atzum has waged a campaign to ensure the enforcement of the laws and to bring the fact of the existence of slavery to the attention of the wider public.  Progress has been made, but it is still slow.  Perhaps the next Pesach we should all take some positive action to help in this battle.

A fuller description of the slave trade in Israel on which the above is based can be found in the current edition of Manna in an article written by Rabbi Levi Lauer (who is the founding director of Atzum) and Advocate Yedida Wolfe and I do urge everyone to obtain a copy (available from The Sternberg Centre).  The issue also contains among many interesting pieces an article on the essence of Jewish environmental ethics by Rabbi Charles Middleburgh, an appreciation of the lives of Rabbis Leo Baeck and Hugo Gryn (zl) and a review of a book on the work of Football club chaplains so you can see the magazine caters for a very broad range of opinions and interests.

Brian Humphreys

 Also see Passover and slavery by Rabbi Tony Bayfield in the Guardian's Comment is Free...

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