No one even tries to conceal the door to the relatively new brothel operating from an apartment on the main pedestrian mall in Neveh Sha’anan, a southern Tel-Aviv neighborhood. Men go in and out of it 24 hours a day. It is entirely possible that the women working there also live in the apartment. What about the police patrol cars that go by in the neighborhood? They drive on without any seeming interest in what’s happening inside. This is just one of 31 such brothels, some operating for years, others just recently opened. All operate within a radius of few hundred meters meters and are only too familiar to the police. Anyone who wants to pay for sex knows he can simply come to this small patch of Tel Aviv and find whatever he wants. Moreover, drugs of all kinds are on sale, even in broad daylight. All anyone has to do is approach one of the dealers, sitting out in deckchairs, selling their wares. The phenomenon is known as “crime tourism.” It is happening unfettered in the heart of a Tel Aviv residential district – even though Israeli law, of course, prohibits the sale of drugs, and since July 2020, has also empowered police to enforce the Law for Prohibition of the Consumption of Prostitution Services, which had passed after years of debate.

Alongside the drug dealers, the addicts, the prostitution, and the gambling, are law-abiding people living in Neveh Sha’anan, including families with young children, who are finding it hard to live a normative life. “We call up the police and they just laugh at us,” says Moti Katz, a local resident and one of the leaders of the neighborhood association. “In the middle of the street, you can see drug dealers injecting prostitutes, who lie in the entrances to our homes. Some days, we call the police 20 times and no one comes. We want governance; we want the police and the municipality to treat us like they treat other neighborhoods in Tel Aviv. If the police saw drug deals in deckchairs selling drugs on Rothschild Boulevard, they would get them out of there.”

Katz, along with other residents, met a few weeks ago with Chief Superintendent Moshe Avital, the new chief of the Sharett station, which covers the area of the central bus station and Neveh Sha’anan. The residents arrived at the meeting in a state of despair. They visited the station many times before, as well as the regional and district headquarters. Police commanders came and went, and they met with them all, begging the police to deal with the wave of criminality washing over their neighborhood. Time after time, their pleas fell on deaf ears. Despite the feeling of helplessness among the residents, the appointment of a new and enthusiastic commander at the station sparked in them some hope that maybe, this time, things would change and the police would start to enforce the law by cracking down on the dozens of brothels, drug houses and violent incidents that occur all hours of the day.

Chief Superintendent Avital – accompanied by the station’s operations officer, one of the detectives and an investigator – sat at the meeting and listened as resident after resident described a reality of crime and neglect from the police and the municipal authorities. “I can already tell you,” Avital told them, according to a recording of the meeting provided to Shomrim, “I am a resident of Rishon Letzion and when I leave my house, the reality you’re experiencing does not exist. My goal is to ensure that your neighborhood is the same as mine, but it’s not simple. There are drug houses here, money’s flowing out of those houses, drugs coming in from Lod and Ramle, and although we earmarked several streets for our attention, we can’t deal with everything.

“I’ve got 90 officers in my station instead of 150. We are lacking 60 officers: that’s just a fact. I’m not making anything up. The goal is to deal with the problem, but, at the end of the day, I have to look at my abilities in terms of the resources available. Next year, we will only deal with streets with normative residents.”

That last sentence infuriated the residents at the meeting, some of whom live on the most crime-ridden streets in Neveh Sha’anan: Fein, Erlinger and others. “There are normative people living on these streets, too,” Katz shouted. “People like me.” To get into his home, Katz has to walk past an active brothel and clamber over addicts who have just taken the drugs they bought from the adjacent dealer. The stairs in his building are strewn with used condoms and needles, testimony to the round-the-clock activity there.

“Just recently, a drug house next to my house, that everybody knew about, was burned down,” Katz told the officers. “You knew about it and we warned you time and time again. What are you waiting for? For us to be murdered? Why don’t you just shut down the brothels? I want to live just like you live in Rishon Letzion,” he said to Avital. “There are families with children living on these streets, and they want to continue living in Tel Aviv. They never imagined this neighborhood was a “Bermuda Triangle” – where all the law enforcement bodies, the police and City Hall, are swallowed up and disappear the moment they come here.”

Throughout the rest of the fraught conversation, the residents raised their voices and the officers promised they would do their best to help them. In response, furious residents said they could no longer trust the police. “Every commanding officer who came before you promised that they would deal with the problems” one of the residents told Avital. “In practice, I see a police officer standing beside a drug dealer. When I ask the officer why he does not conduct a search, he says he cannot.” Katz, meanwhile, wants to know, “when are you going to close the brothels?” Avital responds: “My goal, as a lawman, is to do everything. But I cannot tell you we will resolve all the problems in one day.”

Two years ago, the Knesset passed a law making the consumption of prostitution services a criminal offense. In response, it seems many brothels have changed how they operate, moving from street prostitution to now offering ‘discreet apartments,’ where police rarely enforce the law. A Shomrim investigation, however, reveals that even when it comes to ‘regular’ brothels, the police barely enforce the law. According to statistics obtained by Shomrim, in 2022 a total of 10 closure orders were issued against brothels across Israel, while 2,800 fines were issued to men soliciting or patronizing prostitutes. As noted, in Neveh Sha’anan alone, there are at least 30 brothels that the police are aware of and do nothing about.

In response, the Israel Police said “we conduct widespread enforcement operations against consumers of prostitution and associated crimes across the city, including issuing fines to offenders.” In response to the specific claims made in this article, a police spokesperson said “enforcement on its own cannot provide a solution to all of the social issues; all of the relevant bodies must get involved.” The full response appears below.

“What are you waiting for? For us to be murdered? Why don’t you just shut down the brothels? There are families with children living on these streets, and they want to continue living in Tel Aviv. They never imagined this neighborhood was a “Bermuda Triangle” – where all the law enforcement bodies, the police and City Hall, are swallowed up and disappear the moment they come here.”

No Enforcement? Go to the Supreme Court

The fact that police are helpless is nothing new. Shomrim has published a series of investigative reports about the issue, highlighting various problems, from crime in the south of the country to violence in the Arab community. From the de facto autonomy of the ultra-Orthodox community to the no-man’s-land of enforcement in Judea and Samaria. All of those examples dealt with communities and regions where the police argue, with some degree of justification, that law enforcement is complex. In this context, the circumstances in Neveh Sha’anan are very different: it is a small neighborhood, taking up less than 1 square kilometer of Tel Aviv. It is home to some 35,000 people, most of whom are not registered residents. The crime zones, including the brothels, are very familiar to police. If the police aren’t able to bring law and order to a single-figure number of streets in the heart of Tel Aviv, where can they? 

One of the claims the residents made, before Avital and the other officers at the Sharett station, is that there are “orders from above” not to enforce the law in their neighborhood, that it is convenient for the police to ‘fence off criminal activity’ in Neveh Sha’anan and monitor it so that it does not spill over into other parts of the city. After years of meetings with countless police officers and municipal officials, begging to no avail, for their help in dealing with the extreme neglect, the residents have come to the conclusion that neither the police nor City Hall will help them. 

“We’ve given you videos,” Katz told Avital. “If this were anywhere else, it wouldn’t be allowed to happen. But you don’t listen to us. Our sleep isn’t important; our daughters aren’t important… You have a policy from above to not do anything.”

Avital responded: “There’s no policy, certainly not as far as the police are concerned.” He then reiterated that there is a shortfall of 60 officers at the station he commands. “If I send officers to move them along, they’ll just come back again,” he said. “It’s not a question of policy. We are dealing with the drug dealers and the drug houses. I can show you the figures.” However, during the same conversation, Avital confirms that, in the past, “[the police] did a good job here, but the drug dealers were sent off to a different neighborhood. When the police force left, the dealers returned. The goal here is not to create a situation whereby I am moving them from one street to another but to put them in jail.”

None of this is very compelling for the residents. They remember how Tzachi Sharabi, a former commander of the same police station, told them, “When I put the pressure on dealers here, I get complains from other stations in Tel Aviv because the dealers simply relocate.” They also remember the words of Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai, who was quoted a few years ago as telling residents that if he were to turn Neveh Sha’anan into another up-and-coming neighborhood like Florentine, then another part of the city would become Neveh Sha’anan.

For their part, residents of Neveh Sha’anan are fed up with the empty promises of law and order and have turned for help to the Supreme Court, which they are asking to ensure the principle of equality. In August 2022, Supreme Court Justice Yael Vilner agreed to hear a petition filed against the Israeli Police and Tel Aviv Municipality by residents. The case is due to come up before the court in May. In their petition, the residents argued that the police and the municipality are not enforcing the law in their neighborhood, which constitutes gross discrimination compared to how they handle crime in the rest of the city. “Our neighborhood is a black hole not only for the police but also for the municipality, which is guilty of selective governance,” says Katz. “In Neveh Sha’anan, people live in stores; there are brothels inside stores and the women live there; there are illegal businesses, illegal construction, places operating without a fire department license; landlords knowingly renting out their properties for criminal purposes. All of this is illegal according to laws that the municipality is well aware of. If any of this happened on Yehuda Halevy Street, they would close it down immediately. City Hall could close down every single brothel in Neveh Sha’anan, but someone is stopping it from doing so.” 

The residents opened a Facebook group to help them raise funds for the legal proceedings. As of January 2023, they raised around 86,000 shekels [approxemrly $23,000] from 116 donors. They attached to their Supreme Court petition the addresses of 27 of the brothels operating in the neighborhood. Shomrim visited these addresses and discovered that not only were they still being allowed to operate, but others had opened up. The up-to-date figure is that there are 31 brothels operating openly in Neveh Sha’anan.

Or Abu, the director of the Task Force on Human Trafficking and Prostitution: “When you walk through those streets, and see all of the brothels and strip clubs that are clearly visible, you have to wonder why the police don’t close them. I think about the women inside, who experience violence, humiliation and rape 24 hours a day.”

Tacit Agreement? ‘Every City Has its Dark Places’

Is there, in fact, a tacit agreement between the police and City Hall to ‘contain’ the Neveh Sha’anan crime zone? In a conversation with Shomrim, a former senior police officer, who dealt with the area in question on a daily basis, confirms there is such a policy. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he agreed to share how these decisions are made within the police force. “If they wanted to close a zone down and fight prostitution, it can be done. That is exactly what happened at Tel Baruch,” he says. “It is possible to get prostitution off the streets and it will move to homes and there, according to various rulings, it’s relatively well-established. Why did we not close the brothels in Neveh Sha’anan? Because then, the prostitutes would go into the street, which would lead to robberies and violence toward them and others. Prostitution leads to other crimes and if we shut Neveh Sha’anan down, it will relocate to other places in the city. It won’t disappear. There’s nothing that can be done. We scaled back the phenomenon every so often but left the prostitution zones.”

The former senior officer adds: “You have to understand that there is some logic in the police’s decision. In order to eradicate prostitution, you need to provide health and welfare solutions that we, as a police force, cannot give. Prostitution will exist no matter what, so the idea is to find a balance. If we close 31 brothels, they won’t disappear, they will simply relocate elsewhere or work in the street – which, as stated, brings additional crime.

“For example, we discovered that when prostitutes work on the streets, there is an increase in abuse of these women and more violence. Whatever angle you look at it from, there’s a problem here, but it is a well-known fact that every city has its ‘dark places’ and the trick is to recognize the characteristics and know how to control them. The one time that we genuinely cracked down to eliminate crime in Neveh Sha’anan, we saw an unequivocal spike in crime around Rothschild Boulevard and Hayarkon Street. So, we adopted a strategy of designating an area where this sort of thing could happen. The police have their written orders and they have verbal instructions. When it comes to dealing with Neveh Sha’anan, it’s all verbal.”

Or Abu, the director of the Task Force on Human Trafficking and Prostitution, is enraged by these comments. Walking around the streets of Neveh Sha’anan, she says, “it’s enough to make you tear out your hair in frustration. We work very closely with the police, but there’s a sense that things aren’t moving quickly enough,” she tells Shomrim. “When you walk through those streets, and see all of the brothels and strip clubs that are clearly visible, you have to wonder why the police don’t close them. I think about the women inside, who experience violence, humiliation and rape 24 hours a day – and outside the brothel, everything is going on as normal and police officers pass by without anyone helping these women. It’s a question of priorities and where the police invest their resources.”

Chief Superintendent Avital: “I’ve got 90 officers in my station instead of 150. We are lacking 60 officers: that’s just a fact. I’m not making anything up. The goal is to deal with the problem, but, at the end of the day, I have to look at my abilities in terms of the resources available. Next year, we will only deal with streets with normative residents.”

Neighborhood protest leader Moti Katz says that, in August 2020, he was visited in his home by Inspector Moshe Abramov from the Sharett police station, who wanted to present him with a picture of police enforcement efforts in Neveh Sha’anan. During that conversation, Abramov can be heard admitting that the police mapped out the locations of the brothels and are well aware of the crime happening in Neveh Sha’anan – but still, they do not close the brothels down. At the meeting, Abramov pointed the blame on Tel Aviv Municipality. Abramov showed Katz an intelligence file with documented evidence of the location and activities of these establishments “These are the plans of the building itself, of the house, the location of the business,” he said. “My deputy arrives, goes inside, and sends a text message saying ‘Erlinger Street.’ He goes inside and writes down exactly what he sees: Three rooms, a living room, toilet. That’s also important for the municipality to know because the property has been [illegally] divided up. The Municipality must also take action [and enforce its regulations].”

Later in the conversation, Abramov explained to Katz at length how City Hall has the power to close down all of these criminal businesses – if it only wanted to. “Let’s say that it’s 80 or 90 percent up to the municipality because these places are businesses which have changed their function without proper approvals,” he explains in relation to divided properties or stores that have been turned into apartments and used as brothels.

On the other hand, Abramov says that it is the police’s responsibility to close down the many illegal bars that have opened up in the neighborhood. “I close down these bars because it’s important, because they lead to rapes. Drunks can also lead to an increase in attacks on innocent people.”

One year after that conversation, at a different meeting, Dudi Shalev – the former commander of the Sharett station – claimed that he had shut down the illegal bars in the neighborhood. In practice, there are still dozens of such establishments operating openly.

In May, the Supreme Court will hear the residents’ petition. Supreme Court Chief Justice Esther Hayut will head the panel. Tel Aviv Municipality has already submitted its preliminary response to the petition, arguing that it does not neglect Neveh Sha’anan and is making every effort to deal with the situation in the neighborhood. It presented the court with a list of cultural and welfare activities that it conducts in the neighborhood. “The municipality is well aware of the many and varied challenges, including maintaining public order and preventing crime in the Neveh Sha’anan neighborhood, and it rejects the petitioners’ claim that it is not exercising its legal authority and is not enforcing public order in Neveh Sha’anan in accordance with its powers,” the response states.

It also adds that “the main demands of enforcement (for prostitution and drug dealing) are not within the realm of the municipality’s authority, but, rather, are exclusively in the hands of the police. At the same time, although the municipality does not have enforcement powers when it comes to these crimes, the municipality works in full cooperation with the police and aids it as far as possible, allocating significant resources to promote the goal of maintaining public order and increasing the personal security of residents of the neighborhood.” Tel Aviv’s response to the Supreme Court petition also spells out the activities municipal employees carry out in the neighborhood, such as community activities, sports and culture, as well as social services and a department dedicated to improving the neighborhood's aesthetics. In so doing, Tel Aviv argues, the municipality is helping to “increase the value of the public space and preventing criminal activity from infiltrating that space.”

The Public Security Ministry and the Israel Police have yet to submit their responses to the Supreme Court. The ministry, headed at the time by Omer Bar-Lev and now by Otzma Yehudit chairman Itamar Ben-Gvir, asked the court for an extension on its response to the petition. At the same time, a new ‘neighborhoods minister’ has been appointed –Ben-Gvir’s party colleague Yitzhak Wasserlauf, who serves as Minister for the Development of the Periphery, the Negev and the Galilee. As someone who lives in south Tel Aviv with his family, Wasserlauf has shown great interest in the issue and promised residents will have an open line to him. At first, he agreed to be interviewed for this article but ended up refusing to take our calls or reply to messages.

Neveh Sha’anan residents are tired of promises about ‘resilience’ and ‘governance.’ They eagerly await their day in court. In the meantime, they continue to clamber of junkies sprawled on their sidewalks and continue to suffer from the presence of brothels in their residential buildings.