PLAIN TALK: Organized Crime in Israel

Even though I’m a news junkie, I find it hard to watch or read about organized crime in Israel.

It just disgusts me.

Back in New York, all the Jews I knew – and the Italians for that matter – either had, or aspired to, bourgeois middle class values.

Living in Israel, I’ve had to adjust (with difficulty) to the fact that some Jews are violent thugs with no redeeming values.

I was thinking about my aversion to news about organized on the way to work this morning.

What drew my attention was the Monday afternoon melee in the lobby of a Herzliya luxury hotel during a gathering of some of the Jewish State’s top hoodlums. You know, people who oversee the sale of illegal drugs, enslave women into prostitution and shake-down mom and pop businesses.

There are plenty of reasons to believe that organized crime has penetrated the police and government of the country.

It’s something I don’t want to dwell on too much.

Because if I did, I’d add that to the list of why life in Israel sometimes disappoints – why it sometimes shatters illusions about “us” all being in this together.