Israel

AS WITH OTHER COUNTRIES, it was not until Israel made the shift from a largely agrarian-pioneer society to an urban-industrial and bureaucratic one that corporate crime and its cousin, organized crime, became an important facts of life. Until then, phenomena such as patronage, personalized and informal business and political relationships were not seen as corrupt; they were the way things were done. Moreover, because Israeli authorities have been preoccupied with national security (since the state's founding in 1948) the issues of official corruption and organized crime were rarely studied or addressed until recently. They were not first-order concerns unless they had a direct impact on national security.

Organized crime came to the fore in the 1970s with the arrival of Jews from the Soviet Republic of Georgia, part of the Soviet Union. Some Georgians brought with them the ways and ethos of the Soviet Union whose economic and political systems would have ground to a halt without the lubricants of graft. Thus, the Georgians had learned how to take advantage of the state, its property and the avarice of its officials. It was only natural that they would act similarly in Israel.

Part of this new ethos was embodied in the distinct codes and norms of the vory v zakone (Thieves Professing the Code). These progeny of 19th-century thieves' guilds thrived and dominated the gulags of the early Soviet period until the end of World War II. Unlike other prisoners, the vory consistently refused to work and were steadfast in their unwillingness to cooperate with authorities; a vor's reputation was largely based on his ability to withstand the state's harassments and punishments. Although most vory were killed, their ways were resurrected in the 1970s and 1980s by a new generation of criminals, a significant number of which were from the Caucasus in Georgia.

In Israel, the Georgians introduced new types of criminal activities, such as currency and official document counterfeiting, corruption of public officials and large-scale frauds, and illegal diamond trafficking. They also improved existing activities such as consumer-goods smuggling (Israel has very high taxes), extortion, and theft. The latter was facilitated by the criminals' presence in many of the country's sea and air ports.

The Georgians didn't survive past the midway point of the 1980s, as many of their leaders either died (naturally or prematurely), fled the country, or were imprisoned. There were to be no second-generation Georgians. Moreover, like their brothers in the Soviet Union, these traditionalists were marginalized by a more violent and entrepreneurial younger generation of native-born Israeli and second-wave Soviet immigration gangs.

The second wave of Soviet Jewish immigration started in the 1980s, when many were escaping from the anti-Semitism and poverty of a crumbling Soviet Empire. As is the case in most migrations, this one brought with it a certain criminal element. The element resembled its predecessors only in terms of its creativity and lack of respect for law enforcement. However, these groups fundamentally differed in use of violence, the newer wave being much more prone to use violent methods to collect debts, extort protection fees, and settle disputes.

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