This honor wasn't bestowed on Israel solely on account of the numbers—between 3, and 5, women are smuggled into Israel to be sold into sex slavery each year—since larger countries see much larger numbers in annual human trafficking. All rights reserved. Breaking News. A clean, well-lighted brothel. It sits there in full view, unashamed. Its patrons come and go in full view, unashamed. It's by no means the only one in Tel Aviv, but with its telltale signs unhidden, its street-facing entrance, and its brightly lit address sign—it stands out a bit more.
Close to where I live in Tel Aviv, on a large street in a very good neighborhood, there is a gated entrance to a set of descending stairs. Above the gate is a very clear address sign, which is brightly illuminated at night. The gate, you'll notice, is closed and locked during the day. But at night it's flung open.
The gate, it should be emphasized, opens onto a major thoroughfare. Families stroll down this street to the sea. Young girls go shopping, joggers plod along, and people of all sorts sit at the cafes, of which there are about three or four to every block—including one on the block of the gated stairs.
That gate and those stairs make no secret of what lies beyond. For those who miss the clue of an unmarked establishment that's open only after dusk, or the unsubtle hint of a laundry delivery van bringing dozens if not hundreds of cheap little white towels and clinically thin sheets once a week, then the descent of lone men though, admittedly, they sometimes come in groups of three, but rarely more than that down the stairs or back up again completes the puzzle.
It's a whorehouse. It's by no means the only whorehouse in Tel Aviv. But this one—with its telltale signs unhidden, its street-facing entrance, and its brightly lit and pretty well cleaned address sign—stands out a bit more. You have to wonder, considering all this, about the exact nature of the relationship between the police and the proprietors of this place.
