Hundreds of Tsarfati's workers are housed in caravans in the Lod industrial zone. The workday begins at 6 A.M., and ends at 6 P.M. or later. (Photo by Nir Kafri)

These are the opening lines of an article appearing this week on the cover of "24 Hours" a widely distributed newspaper in Bulgaria. The article is based on the first-person account of a Bulgarian construction worker who worked in Israel until the fall of 2002. The worker, who spoke anonymously, had been recruited for work in Israel by Bacheisky, a company whose manager told the newspaper that he has sent over 2000 workers to Israel, and had never heard any complaints.

Bacheisky is a local agent for Yitzhak Tsarfati of Rishon Letzion, who owns a company that supplies construction and manpower services in Israel. Despite his claim of never having heard complaints from workers sent to Israel, numerous complaints have been heard, although it seems as if everyone who has heard them prefers to remain silent: the workers are usually too scared to go to the police or to the support organizations; the contractors are satisfied with the disciplined workers, whose diligence and professionalism has gained the Bulgarians a sterling reputation; and the Israeli and Bulgarian diplomats prefer to know as little as possible, for their own reasons.

Serious charges of kidnapping, imprisonment and beating of four workers were submitted to the police over two-and-a-half years ago, but the file has been gathering dust in the prosecutor's office.

"Our workers don't run away," assures the headline in a brochure put out by Tsarfati, in which he also offers contractors $5,000 in compensation for every runaway. Tsarfati's workers have made a name for themselves. They do not run away from their employers, unlike Romanian and Chinese workers, who have broken their contracts.

Denia Sibos, an Israeli contracting firm, has had to contend with over 700 runaways, says Gideon Shavlovich, a project manager who is intimately familiar with the trade. Shavlovich is cited as a reference in the promotional brochure published by Tsarfati. He praises Tsarfati's workers, who not only show up for work every day, but, he says, also seem to be content with their lot. Shavlovich also wasted no time in telling Tsarfati about the Ha'aretz reporter who had been asking questions about him.

Ambushed by tough guys

The question is what methods does Tsarfati use to guarantee that his crews won't run away. "I have recently received disturbing reports about a manpower contractor, Yitzhak Tsarfati of Rishon Letzion, who treats the workers that he brings from Bulgaria with severe violence. It has been alleged that he imposes a reign of terror that is intended to prevent them from running away from him..." wrote MK Yuri Stern (National Union-Yisrael Beitenu) this week to Police Major General Yaakov Ganot, who oversees immigration cases.

"The workers are too frightened to complain, partly because Mr. Tsarfati threatens to hurt their families in Bulgaria, where he has widespread businesses and connections," writes Stern, a former chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Workers Committee. "According to the reports, there is severe abuse - Bulgarian toughs beat workers with fists and blunt instruments, kicking their heads until they bleed, breaking ribs and arms and legs - and not only for attempting to run away. Workers that dared to complain about money missing from their salaries have also been beaten, as were workers who refused to work on Saturday, or who were injured in work accidents and who sought to remain in Israel for medical treatment. It was alleged that the homes of three workers in Bulgaria were burned down, and that the workers are required to present Mr. Tsarfati's agents in Bulgaria with a copy of the deeds to their homes, so that he can confiscate their property should they violate their contract with him."

Among the complaints that served as the basis for Stern's letter:

One worker said he had run away because his wages were lower than what he had been promised - $3 an hour instead of $4. He hid with an acquaintance in Jaffa, but one evening four or five tough guys were waiting for him as he left a restaurant, and took him to the company's office in Rishon. "They pushed me in and then started to hit me. My whole shirt was full of blood. My nose was bleeding. I didn't put up a fight. I was afraid they would dump me in a ditch, without any documents, and then how would anyone know who I was? What would they tell my friends in Bulgaria?"

One of the workers cried as he described the beatings he'd absorbed from a man named Christo. "He and another guy threw me into a caravan. Both of them punched and kicked me for 10 minutes or so. I asked them to stop, I promised I wouldn't run away any more, but they wouldn't stop. Finally they left me alone. I rested for one day and then went back to work," the worker related. The black-and-blue marks from the beating the week before were still clearly visible on the upper half of his body.

One of the men spoke about some friends who had run away, acquired transit documents from the Bulgarian Embassy in place of the passports that had been taken from them, but who were caught at the airport and beaten. "They waited a few days until the disfiguring marks faded, and then they put them on a plane," he said. "One of these fellows was hauled from site to site so that everyone would see the marks."

In May 2000, despite the promises, four workers ran away, claiming their actions were prompted by the violence against them. According to one man involved in the affair, the four found refuge on a moshav where they stayed for three months, until Tsarfati's men discovered them, having put pressure on their families in Bulgaria to divulge their whereabouts. In a complaint submitted to the Bat Yam police, it was alleged that the four were brought to Tsarfati's office, where they were handcuffed to pipes in a shelter for several hours, and beaten. The Bat Yam police refuse to reveal what their investigation turned up, saying only that the file had been transferred to the prosecutor.

All of the workers interviewed for this article stipulated that they would only talk on condition that their names would not be revealed. One consented to have the physical signs of his beating photographed. In order to avoid his identification, Ha'aretz omitted descriptions of many of the instances. Two of the men asked that the car that transported them to the interview site wait outside their residence with its lights off. One worker said that he was beaten in public, on the grounds of his dormitory, in order that his friends would see, and be frightened. Others said they were beaten in the shower room of their dormitory.

"They're really poor wretches. The most terrifying methods are used against them. Their families are under threat," says a building supervisor in a large construction firm.

The executive director of the Contractor's Association, Major General (res.) Yehuda Segev, says that after hearing rumors about the ostensible "terror" used against the workers, he called in Tsarfati for a conversation, partly to ask him how it is that his workers do not run away. Tsarfati explained that it is worthwhile for them to work for him, as he builds apartments for the men in Bulgaria - he is the developer, and they are the builders. With the funds that they save from their work in Israel, they buy the apartments.

Yair Yitzhaki, a past commander in the Jerusalem police who now runs a Solel Boneh subsidiary that brings in construction workers from abroad, has also heard rumors about Tsarfati. He says he decided not to work with Tsarfati in the future, although even in the past Solel Boneh has employed very few of Tsarfati's workers.

However, one man who had worked as a sales manager for Tsarfati had a slightly different explanation as to why nobody runs away from Tsarfati. "The workers are ours. We supervise them. It's not worth it for them to run away, That is why I can issue a pledge to give a contractor $5,000 if they run away. We don't have any runaways," said the man.

A town enclosed by a wall

Hundreds of Tsarfati's 800 workers are housed in caravans in the Lod industrial zone, living in conditions that to the visitor from the outside seem dismal and crowded. The site is encompassed by a high concrete wall, with guards posted around the encampment in the evening hours. Workers on the site report that 40 men share a single shower. In other sites in Israel, his workers say that they have no heating or air-conditioning, and anyone who wants a television or satellite antenna must buy it himself. Workers report "penalties" of up to $150 that are imposed on anyone who refuses to go to work because he doesn't feel well, or is late coming back from shopping or going out with friends. The workday begins at 6 A.M., and ends at 6 P.M. or later, with half an hour off for lunch. On days that they work until 9 P.M., the workers receive another quarter-hour break for dinner. On Fridays, they work only six hours.

The worker who was interviewed for the Bulgarian newspaper reported: "There were mice bigger than cats in the caravans, and lots of cockroaches. There might have been 14 caravans on a single circuit breaker. They would use crowbars to smash any electric appliances that we plugged in. We would come back wet, and wouldn't be able to dry the clothes."

Yehuda Segev, of the Contractors' Association, dispatched a supervisory team to the dormitory site in Lod. He says the team found that the wages the workers were receiving was fair, and that the living conditions in the camp in Lod were above average, with four or five men in a room, instead of the more typical seven or eight.

A no less disturbing aspect of the affair is Tsarfati's connections with Emanuel Zisman, the man who served as Israeli ambassador to Bulgaria until November 2002, as well as with his predecessor, David Cohen. Zisman and Cohen's names appear as character references in Tsarfati's brochure, along with their cell phone numbers. Asked several months ago about Tsarfati, Zisman said, "We work with his company on a continuous and ongoing basis."

Nine months ago, Victor Shem-Tov, the former MK and chairman of the Association of Bulgarian Emigres in Israel, approached his friend Emanuel Zisman, at the time Israeli's ambassador to Sofia. Shem-Tov had a few days earlier received a letter in which Chana Zohar, the director of Kav L'Oved, (the Worker's Hotline), stated that, "For a long time, we have been receiving reports of serious cases of harm done to Bulgarian workers" by employees of a Bulgarian company that works with the Tsarfati company. Shem-Tov enclosed her letter in his letter to Zisman, and expressed his hope that the ambassador would relate to the allegations "with the proper attention."

Zisman, it seems, was not surprised by the request. "Tsarfati always denied the allegations against him, arguing that he was a good - and enlightened - employer," Zisman said this week. He added that the allegations might have something to do with competition between the manpower companies that import Bulgarian workers to Israel. Incidentally, this is the very argument offered by Tsarfati himself. In any case, Zisman told Shem-Tov that he was unable to take any action in the matter because the man in question was an Israeli businessman, and that the legal authorities in Israel would be a more suitable address.

Zisman and Tsarfati met when both were members of the Labor Party; both men subsequently joined the Third Way movement, which gave Zisman a seat in the Knesset. Tsarfati says that he is now a member of the Likud, although he contributes to various Knesset members - Eli Ben-Menachem of Labor, and Tzachi Hanegbi of Likud. Zisman says he has never received a contribution from Tsarfati.

After Zisman's appointment as ambassador to Sofia by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Tsarfati used to visit him often. He even boasted to associates that it was through his connections that Zisman received the posting. "He would sit in [Zisman's] office for hours, and run his business affairs from there," recalls an embassy staffer. Zisman says that Tsarfati did not sit in his room any more than in any other room of the building.

Tsarfati, the leading importer of Bulgarian manpower to Israel, was a popular guest at the embassy even before Zisman's arrival. Zisman's predecessor, David Cohen, who allegedly enjoyed good relations with Tsarfati, is now a department head in the Foreign Ministry's MASHAV Center for International Cooperation. Cohen vehemently denies the claim, said the ministry's spokeswoman this week. A few months ago, when Cohen was asked about his supposed contacts with Tsarfati, he refused to respond. Based on a past request for information from Tsarfati, it became clear that Cohen had informed him of the questions posed by Ha'aretz. Tsarfati said it was he who had advised Cohen not to respond.

Yesterday, Ha'aretz received a letter from Cohen's attorney, Aharon Assa, who asserted that the Cohen's name was used in Tsarfati's brochure without his consent. He stated that his client "knows nothing about the Tsarfati's letter, and if this letter was sent, it was without his knowledge or consent."

Zisman was asked this week about the rumors that Tsarfati had charged exorbitant sums from workers applying to work in Israel, who are required to have medical examinations, and that he shared the profits with Israeli officials. He replied that the matter had been investigated prior to his arrival in Sofia by Foreign Ministry investigators. The ministry has refused to comment on the matter. Tsarfati said he won a Health Ministry tender to provide the examinations through a private clinic in Sofia with which he was associated, and that the price, $75, was lower than that charged in other countries.

Tsarfati: Violence was not used

Businessman Yitzhak Tsarfati denied the allegations that violence was employed against his workers. The loyalty of the workers, he claimed, did not stem from fear but from the good treatment they receive, fair wages - on time - and the comfortable living conditions he furnishes. He attributes complaints of violence to libels propagated by his competitors, who aim to destroy his business. "It's a black mafia," he says, referring to a conspiracy ostensibly woven against him by party stalwarts from Shas, who are trying to gain control of the market for imported foreign workers.

According to Tsarfati, the police complaint against him concerned only one person who was beaten, and that the man was incited by a competing company to lodge the complaint. Tsarfati confirms that he was arrested, along with some of his employees, and interrogated. He says that he was asked mainly about his business affairs abroad. He says that he was placed under arrest in the Tel Aviv Hilton, where he was held from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning, at which time he was released. In a conversation held with a Ha'aretz reporter several months ago, however, Tsarfati said that he was held in the Abu Kabir lockup for 48 hours. According to a source highly familiar with the affair, Tsarfati was released on bail of NIS 1 million.

"It things are so bad for them, how do you explain that a lot of them come back to us for a second and a third time to work in Israel?" asks Tsarfati. One worker does in fact relate that this was his second time working for Tsarfati, but that on his last contract, in the mid-1990s, the situation was different. Although at the time he heard of a worker who was beaten, he never related any importance to it. "Back then, I had dignity," he says. "Now I have nothing."

Tsarfati feels that the plot against him has to do with jealousy over his success, which stems from the low rates he charges contractors for his workers - $4.85 an hour, instead of the $6 that his competitors charge - as well as the fact that he does not charge a fee from Bulgarians who want to come to Israel, making it worthwhile for them to work for him. The Bulgarians "only" pay $520-$700 - about six average monthly salaries in Bulgaria - for insurance, license fees, work clothes, airplane ticket, medical exams and other ancillary costs of the importer. This sum is indeed lower than that paid by Romanians and Chinese to come to Israel.

Solel Boneh, explains Tsarfati, was not happy with the low hourly rates he charges and demanded that he raise it to the market standard. "Why should I? I suffice with a profit of 30 cents an hour per worker. Why should I earn a dollar? This way, everyone is happy. The workers buy apartments in Bulgaria for $8,000 and are left with thousands of dollars in hand. I said the same thing to Solel Boneh when they asked