Human Trafficking

Speaking of slavery, (as I did in my last post,) I have a comment\retraction that I'd like to make about my previous post, "Slavery Today." 

In that post I wrote about celebrities trying to build awareness of modern-day slavery, and I demonstrated my ignorance by saying, (ironically - or, perhaps egotistically,) "Call me ignorant but, well, I'm really not - and still I'm not sure what they're referring to."

I guessed, in that post, that the celebrities were referring to slavery in Sudan or Rwanda, and didn't take much notice of the comment from aztecqueen2000 that, "In the United States, human beings are the third most trafficked commodity behind drugs and weapons. They are used for domestic service, sweatshop labor and prositution." 

I should have taken notice, because that's a seriously frightening statistic, but it was just words to me... Until I got a view of it for myself. So to speak. It was while babysitting last week, with the child asleep, that I was doing what babysitters tend to do - watching television. (Oy gevalt! A frum girl watching television! What is the world coming to? Yada yada yada. Get over it.) 

And the movie that I wound up watching was about human trafficking. Googling it now, in fact, it turns out that the title of the movie is, "Human Trafficking." 

"It follows the fictional cases of young women around the world, lured or abducted, sometimes right off the street, into a world of unspeakable brutality--which the filmmakers show in almost overwhelming detail at times.[...]  And while sometimes almost unbearably harsh, the film serves as a reminder this terrible situation still exists and thrives; and told through the characters, is also a well-paced thriller." (-A.T. Hurley, Amazon.com Review)

I believe in divine providence to the extent that I believe that everything that happens to me happens because G-d wants it to. I believe that there is no such thing as coincidence, and that if I see something, I saw it for a reason. That's why I believe that G-d wanted me to see this movie. 

It's scandalous to say so in the frum community, where movies are considered evil, but I think that this movie needs to be seen. I imagine that it was censored for television, and am glad of that, but it nevertheless showed the pain and horror of human trafficking in a way that just talking about it doesn't. 

That's why I'm posting the trailer for the movie here. But when I say, VIEWER DISCRESSION ADVISED, I really mean it. Don't watch this if you will be bothered by images of, "Young women around the world being lured and abducted" into horrible situations. When I say that this movie needs to be seen, I'm not saying that everyone needs to see it. If you're under 18, or are very frum and haven't been exposed to such things, DO NOT watch this. 

Having said that, I still believe that people need to see this. People need to know that this is going on. In the world of politics in this country, nothing gets done unless the People desire for it to get done: publicizing this issue until we refuse to ignore it anymore is the only way that we can end it. And in the spirit of Pesach, (Passover) the holiday where we celebrate our freedom from captivity, we should remember those who are not so fortunate. 

No Christianity, No Islam, No America

Pesach (Passover) is coming and along with it comes chaos. For Orthodox Jews Passover means more just family and celebrating. It means removing every crumb of bread (rice, pretzels, bagels, popcorn - food in general) from every corner of your house. That means everything from vacuuming under (and inside) every piece of furniture to cleaning out any books that you may have gotten a crumb inside of at any time during the year.

Yes, we Orthodox Jews are crazy. 

I'm taking a moment, now, to remember that this holiday is not just about that craziness. It's about the miracles that G-d did when He freed the "Children of Israel" (we weren't "Jews" then - we were just "Israel's kids") from Egyptian slavery. 

Stop, for a moment, and think about what the world would be like if G-d had not taken us out of Egypt. There would be no Jewish nation. Chances are we would have, after another couple hundred years, have just lost our identity in Egypt and, at best, would have become lower-class Egyptian citizens. Worst case, we would have died out. Pharoah was killing all male "Israelite" babies, and without any "Jewish" boys, there would be no more Jewish families. 

Kaput. Our story would have ended before it began. 

Forget about the Land of Israel. It would never have been started. 

Forget about Christianity. Jesus would never have been born. 

Forget about Islam. Mohammed would never have met those Jews in the desert who inspired him to start his own religion. 

Would the American Revolution have been possible without its Jewish sponsors? 

No Christianity. No Islam. No America. Where the heck would the world be without the Jews?

Slavery Today

A bunch of celebrities got together recently to tell Obama that he's not alone. They wanted to reassure him after he got, "the loneliest job in the world." Poor guy. 

They all pledged to take steps to help Obama in his lonely job. Some of the pledges were pretty good. I especially liked the one where some celebrity, who I didn't recognize, pledged,  "to consider myself an American, not an African-American." What a great goal for a nation that really needs to let itself get past its history of slavery. Come on - do we really need affirmative action when a black man just managed to get the most powerful job in the country? 

It was slavery, more than any other issue, that was emphasized in this video. I quote:

Some lady with an accent and a smoker's voice: "I pledge"

Some woman in a white jacket: "To work to make good the 200 year old promise to end slavery"

Ashton Kutcher: "To the abolition of 21st century slavery"

Demi Moore: "To free one million people from slavery in the next five years" 

Call me ignorant but, well, I'm really not - and still I'm not sure what they're referring to. Because I'm not completely ignorant, I'm going to venture a guess that this "slavery" that they're talking about is taking place in Sudan or Rwanda, (Uganda? Western Sahara? Kenya?) or something, an inference I make from,

1. A video I came across a year or so ago that told the story of children in Africa kidnapped and forced to fight for their captor's army, (which kind of sounds like the stories of Jews in Russia being kidnapped and forced to join the Czar's army,) and,

2. From the fact that modern-day slavery stemmed from Africa when warring African tribes sold their prisoners-of-war to European slave traders. 

If someone knows what the real story is, please do tell, but in the meantime I really have to wonder how these celebrities expect their audience to know what they're talking about when most Americans (and I don't say this in a boastful manner - it's just a fact,) are not nearly as aware of world issues as I am, and even I'm not sure what they're talking about. 

Freeing slaves -- that I know a lot about. In the daily prayers that Jews (are supposed to) say every day we are reminded about the fact that G-d freed us from slavery in Egypt a while back. As I was saying them today I was thinking about the fact that, like the Passover prayer says, if G-d had not brought our ancestors out of Egypt, we - and our children, and our grandchildren - would still be slaves to some guy with the title, "Pharaoh," in Egypt. Pretty spooky. 

From my knowledge of slaves being freed, it's gonna take a heck of a lot more than just a mention in a celebrity video to free these 21st century slaves. Try 12 plagues. 

Oh wait, no - that won't work. Destroying enemy land (Locust) and property (Pestilence, Hail), torturing the enemy (No water! Bugs everywhere! Boils! Turning out the lights!), and killing the enemy (Death of the Firstborn) would all be deemed unusable as tactics for freeing a suffering people. 

Okay, so we don't free them the way G-d did - we free them the way Lincoln did. Nope - that won't work either. It took a war with more American casualties than any other war fought by America to free those slaves. Besides, Lincoln was a Republican and we can't do anything the way that he did it. 

How about in the way that we freed Afghanis from the Taliban's cruel reign and Iraqis from Saddam Hussein's oppression? 

Right...

How, exactly, are these celebrities expecting us to end slavery, then?