About 5,600 beneficiaries of the Law of Return have immigrated to Israel from Russia in the past two months as part of Operation Returning Home. They took off on flights funded by the Israeli government, received an envelope with cash on landing and then took a taxi, which was paid for by the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption, to a hotel – whose stay was also fully subsidized by the Israeli taxpayer.
In the same hotel, where many of them stayed for about a month, they received three hot meals a day and a variety of services that reached them. These are privileges that ordinary immigrants are not entitled to at all – for those immigrants from Russia a “comparison of conditions” was made to the refugee immigrants from the bombed-out Ukraine. Within a few weeks they received the long-awaited passport (which was valid for only one year), and then, a third of them, about 1,800 people, returned to Russia.
An investigation by the Jerusalem Post and Maariv reveals that during the last week, the Minister of Aliyah and Absorption, Pnina Temano Sheta, learned what the extent of the abandonment was. This week, the 15,000th immigrant landed in Israel as part of the operation, and senior officials in the Ministry of Absorption say that Sheta “was shocked by the abandonment data,” and said that this completely contradicts the thesis behind the mitigating approach taken to Russian Jews.
“The information we received is that Russian Jews feel that the Iron Curtain is expected to go down again, so we decided to allow them special benefits,” said a senior official in the Ministry of Absorption. “But when a third of those immigrants take advantage of the kindness of the State of Israel and then leave in order to continue living in Russia, this is a serious problem.” The Minister has decided to completely stop the accommodation of Russian immigrants in government-funded hotels from the beginning of next week. At the same time, Tamano Sheta ordered the establishment of an exceptions committee that would allow special cases such as pensioners, Holocaust survivors or sick people to stay in these hotels.
The Ministry of Immigration and Absorption rented more than 40 hotels for immigrants from Ukraine even before the first shot was fired. Prior to the rule of law, it was decided to also allow immigrants from Russia – who are not refugees, in view of the fact that life there is conducted almost as usual – to stay in the hotels in question. “It should be understood that some of the immigrants from Ukraine come only with the clothes on, while the immigrants from Russia are not in the same situation,” the source in the ministry adds. “The very fact that many of them return to Russia after coming here illustrates how much they are not refugees at all.”
Bardak in hotels
Senior officials at the national institutions explain that there is a serious problem with immigration from Russia due to two reasons: The first is that many immigrants have no place to live in Israel. The second reason is that there are no regular flights to Israel. Since the Russian company Aeroflot stopped flying to Israel, the only company that operates flights on this route is El Al. The price of an El Al flight ticket from Moscow to Israel can reach $ 1,000, four times the price on days when they are repaired. In addition, it is almost impossible to find a seat on those flights. Therefore, the Ministry of Aliyah and Absorption decided to promote the integration of Israir to the Moscow-Tel Aviv line so that there will be more flights for the immigrants.
Sources in the national institutions reveal that there are about 3,000 returnees to the law and immigrants with immigration visas waiting to immigrate to Israel from Russia, and that there is a “crazy bottleneck” in the ability to immigrate to Israel from the country. Of those waiting, there are about 1,100 who received an aliyah visa and about 1,900 who received an initial permit to come to Israel and carry out the process in Israel. Here in Israel, their eligibility will be checked and then it will be decided whether to keep them in Israel or return them to Russia.
In 2019, I first revealed in Makor Rishon the phenomenon of using the amendment to the Law of Return for the purpose of obtaining an Israeli passport by beneficiaries from Russia and Ukraine. A significant change in the issue occurred following the Passports Law enacted in 2017 and previously by MK Oded Forer, currently the Minister of Agriculture, of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. Under the new law promoted by Forer, new immigrants receive the passport within three months, instead of waiting a year. In fact, even the three months can be circumvented by signing a form in which the immigrant declares that he agrees to lose his right to citizenship during this period, without penalties.
Eligible for the Law of Return in Russia and the former Soviet Union countries have realized the potential, and many commercial companies have been established to provide them with the service. Advertisements on Russian-speaking sites, and even billboards throughout Russia, offer “Israeli citizenship within two days.” Another advertisement promises “an Israeli passport in just three days in Israel.”
In 2020, Kalman Liebskind published very disturbing data here in Maariv: In 2018, 17,879 Jews immigrated from the Commonwealth of Independent States. 7,139 of them, about 40%, were not in Israel at the time of writing. In 2019, 22,683 people immigrated to Israel from the Commonwealth of Independent States. 9,419 of them, about 41%, left within a short time. “4,301 of them came here, took the new passport, stayed here less than a month, and disappeared,” Liebskind wrote.
The Ministry of Immigration and Absorption has not yet cracked the reason for the immediate departure of those new immigrants and the way to deal with the phenomenon, but they are aware of this and are working to change the situation. Did the immigrants plan to come here and leave immediately? Has the State of Israel failed to absorb them and is this the reason for the high abandonment rate?
It should be noted that in the first month of the operation, there was a great deal of disorder in some of the hotels and only in the last month did the situation begin to stabilize: female teachers were stationed in the hotels as well as representatives of a variety of other bodies. In addition, Col. (Res.) Golan Wach, who serves as the commander of the national rescue unit, has been appointed projector on behalf of Tamano Sheta in managing the hotel system throughout the country.
Either way, it’s hard to ignore the feeling that over the years many returnees to the Law of Return are taking advantage of the goodness of the state to make a round of us all.