Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves.
Your male and female slaves are to come from the goyim around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy goyim living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath goyim to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not enslave your fellow Israelites.
Organ sales are illegal in most countries, and the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime includes in its definition of human exploitation the extraction of organs for profit. Until very recently, however, the Israeli government not only permitted organ harvesting, it funded it.
Israelis are the leaders in “transplant tourism” — traveling to other nations to buy internal organs. While some affluent individuals from numerous countries engage in this practice, Israel is unique in several ways.
First, Israelis partake at an extraordinarily high rate. According to a 2001 BBC report, Israelis buy more kidneys per capita than any other population.
Second, Israelis have the lowest donor rate in the world due in part to beliefs that Jewish religious law prohibits Jewish organ removal as “desecration of the body.”
