This sexual abuse of children became entrenched in many kibbutzim because of taboos against seeking assistance from police or other authorities outside the kibbutz. The abusers were protected by a code of silence. The code of silence was broken recently when a former kibbutz member, Nahshon Golatz, filed a lawsuit against the kibbutz movement and the government of Israel seeking compensation for the abuse to which he had been subjected as a child. Several newspapers in Britain, including the Times and the Independent, reported some of the details last month, and this in turn has encouraged other kibbutz victims to speak out. Especially interesting is the picture which has emerged of the treatment of women and girls in the kibbutzim.
Rape is a common feature of kibbutz life.
Women, teen-aged girls, even children as young as three years old are regularly raped, unless they have a male protector who is strong enough to fight off the gangs of rapists who prey on them. Gang rape of unprotected women is an especially popular sport among male kibbutzniks. I'll read you a few lines from a report which appeared in the British newspaper the Independent on January 20. Ever since the Second World War, of course, the Germans have been exposed to nonstop Jewish propaganda about what terrible people they are for having been so nasty to those wonderful, innocent, gifted, blameless, sensitive, violin-playing Jews who lived in Germany before Hitler came along and got rid of all of them for no good reason. Well, you can imagine what happened to those poor girls.