Blog for Anti-Slavery Day written by. Rabbi Eliyahu Goldsobel
Earlier this year, I finally travelled to Budapest as part of the René Cassin–AJA Fellowship Programme, a journey delayed since COVID-19. One afternoon, I walked along the grandly named Fashion Street, greeted by a giant sign declaring: “Your Lifestyle.”
It should have felt welcoming. Instead, it felt exposing. I had taken my laptop into the Starbucks at its entrance to catch up on notes from my research, yet here, the café was not simply a place for coffee. It was the gateway to a catwalk. Designer façades framed the street, and passers-by seemed to glide by as though performing for one another, dressed to belong.
In contrast, I sat there typing, absorbed in work, breaking the rhythm of that performance. My behaviour, focused, solitary, perhaps a little intense, drew glances and whispers. At one point, someone even complained to the waitress that I was “taking up table space.” In that moment, I realised I wasn’t just sitting in a café, I had become part of the display. The discomfort wasn’t about identity or faith; it was about difference and the unease that surfaces when neurodivergence meets environments built for conformity.
That experience forced me to look past the glamour and ask what this “lifestyle” really means and at what human cost it is sustained.
A Street As A Stage
Fashion Street is not just a row of shops. It is a theatre. The glossy logos, the luxury slogans, the Starbucks at the gates, all of it stages a promise: identity through consumption. To belong, you must look the part, buy the part, and become the part.
But behind the sparkle lies something darker. Human-rights investigations have repeatedly traced forced labour into the global supply chains of fashion, food, and technology. Cotton from Xinjiang, tomato paste harvested under coercion, and polysilicon for solar panels have all been documented as products of exploitation. These goods flow into European high streets, as well as our own, woven invisibly into the fabric of our everyday consumption.
The people who make this “lifestyle” possible are unseen, unheard, their stories buried beneath the gloss of shopfronts and slogans. To be silenced in this way is to be stripped of dignity, a denial of the most basic human right: freedom.
Rabbi Sacks’ Moral Map
As I reflected, I was drawn to the wisdom of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. Writing on the Torah’s laws of slavery, he pointed out something radical: the Bible did not abolish slavery overnight, but it transformed it from a permanent identity into a temporary condition. A Hebrew slave was freed after six years, revolutionary in its time, not a revolution of force, but an evolution of morality.
Rabbi Sacks described this as a moral map: the Torah charted a deliberate path away from exploitation, teaching that freedom is not instant but cultivated step by step through moral imagination. Crucially, it gave the vulnerable a voice, urging society to hear the cry of the stranger, the widow, the orphan.
What a contrast to today’s “maps.” The banner Your Lifestyle offers a paper utopia, instant belonging, instant identity, but it is hollow. Instead of leading us towards freedom, it traps us in cycles of consumption while the voices of the exploited remain hidden from view.
René Cassin: The Jewish Voice For Human Rights
This insight connects directly to the legacy of Monsieur René Cassin, the French-Jewish jurist, who helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after the Holocaust. Cassin understood that law alone could not secure dignity; it needed a shared moral vision. Central to that vision was expression: the right to speak, to testify, to demand that injustice be seen.
Today, that legacy is carried forward by René Cassin, a UK-based charity that campaigns against trafficking, forced labour, and exploitation in the UK. As the Jewish voice for human rights, René Cassin reminds us that freedom is not just about personal choice, it is about the responsibility to protect those whose voices are silenced and to amplify their call for justice.
England and Wales: The Unfinished Task
In England and Wales, the Modern Slavery Act 2015 was celebrated as a milestone. Yet a decade later, the cracks are clear. Transparency requirements under Section 54 are weak: companies can publish generic “slavery statements” without evidence of action, and there are no penalties for failure to report. Imports made with forced labour, such as cotton from Xinjiang, continue to enter UK markets.
Campaigners have called for reforms that would:
- Introduce reprimands for firms that falsify or omit modern slavery reports;
The goal must be awareness and accountability: helping companies move from paper compliance to real compliance, from “statements” to safeguards. Without these changes, the Act risks being little more than a paper shield, appearing strong while leaving systemic exploitation untouched. As a barrister-in-training and human-rights advocate, I hope to work with corporations to strengthen due diligence, embed safeguards, and help translate legal principles into practice.
As Rabbi Sacks taught, true freedom is not achieved by paper declarations but by moral evolution. If we are to honour the Modern Slavery Act in spirit as well as in letter, we must protect space for expression, listen to the truths it reveals, and shift from comfort that blinds, to courage that sees.
