The incident of Galkin and Pugacheva: what is wrong with Israeli citizenship

“Get a passport and leave” – this is the headline of the Israeli “Channel 13” article, which featured well-known personalities in Russia who managed to obtain Israeli citizenship. The author of the article emphasizes that since the start of the special operation in Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian immigrants have arrived in the country. But 41% of the Russians who arrived there and received an Israeli passport have already returned to their homeland.

The numbers of those who moved to the Holy Land are really high. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Israel to Russia Alexander Ben Zvi in ​​the program “You hold on!” on RTVI in mid-November, he cited the following figures: “About 20 thousand left, who received visas from us. And how many went to Israel directly, without going through us and obtaining citizenship? We do not have an exact figure, but also about 20 thousand. That is only 40 thousand.

This is an approximate number of those who actually came to the country and completed the necessary documents. However, the question of how many of those who left actually remained in Israel remains open. No one will give exact data, referring to the fact that “this is their business.”

Raviv Drucker, the author of the Channel 13 material, however, gives completely different thoughts. The Law of Return (adopted by the Knesset on July 5, 1950) is said to allow citizenship if the immigrant’s intentions indicate a desire to settle in the country. But is it? Let’s analyze the document itself.

Bearing in mind so many difficulties in obtaining Israeli citizenship, one might think that the said Law of Return is close in scope to the Talmud. In fact, it consists of only 5 articles and clearly regulates the rules of repatriation.

First, it is clearly stated that “every Jew has the right to immigrate to Israel.” But in order to be in the “country of the chosen people” for this purpose, you need to obtain a special repatriate visa. It is issued only after passing the consular check in the country of origin. For example, Russians can obtain permission from the consul at the Israeli embassy in the Russian Federation.

According to Article 2 of the Law of Return, a visa permit can be issued to every person who is a Jew and who wishes to move to Israel for permanent residence. And what is important here: the document states that there must be a “desire to move to permanent residence”. But if there are so many who left the country after receiving the cherished documents, then it turns out that this moment is not monitored?

Formally, there is a regulator. The body tasked with checking the intentions of migrants is the state agency Nativ. The leadership of the agency, as noted by Channel 13, is influenced by the Israel Our Home party. The party leader is Israeli Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Just a couple of years ago, he sharply criticized Bezalel Smotrich (now he represents the Religious Zionism party), who proposed to amend the law under analysis: to cancel the item “on grandchildren”. Let’s explain.

Article 4 of the Law (“who can apply for repatriation”) had already been amended in 1970. The list began to include: persons with the indication “Jew” or “Jewish” in the column “nationality”, children of Jews (even on the father’s side) and grandchildren of Jews (if grandparents are Jews).

Smotrich reinforced his arguments by saying that it was time to “prevent one of the greatest absurdities in Israeli law, which allows non-Jews to ‘kosher’ enter the country.” Right-wing coalitions eagerly picked up such an initiative, because, as the then Israeli news site Ynet noted, thanks to the “grandchildren provision”, about 400,000 immigrants and their descendants with “indeterminate religion” live in Israel. And this is the main problem that causes controversy in the public. As part of this, it was even proclaimed a national task to convert such people to Judaism en masse, but such a decision did not lead to anything, although this is practiced when obtaining citizenship.

The procedure is called giyur. In fact, the adoption of Judaism. This way to acquire Israeli citizenship is provided specifically for persons who are not Jewish by origin. The procedure, as you might guess, is not momentary. There are separate requirements for both men and women.

For example, a woman must necessarily have an attractive but modest appearance, the hostess must know kashrut (a list of prescriptions related to cooking), and in order to fully embrace the faith, one must attend not only the synagogue, but every Shabbat come to a devout Jewish family.

For men, circumcision is a mandatory item, a future Jew should never shave off his beard, and the presence of sidelocks is also important. A man must also wear a kippah, clothing must be muted, shorts and T-shirts are not allowed.

Conversion also means passing exams in the rabbinic court. If a potential Jew or a potential Jewess successfully answers all the questions of the commission, then there is a mandatory ablution in a mikveh (a special tank for this procedure). After that, a person is already considered a full-fledged Jew or Jewess.

After all of the above, candidates can apply for Israeli citizenship. But by the way, this might not work either. Conversion must be carried out in a community that is recognized by the local Ministry of Internal Affairs (this is where the final decision on granting citizenship is made). Also, the new convert must participate in the life of the community for at least 9 months after the conversion. If the required “experience” is missing, the Ministry of Internal Affairs may first issue a temporary residence permit to a person. The application for citizenship is submitted later.

Recall that giyur is designed only for non-believers. Jews by birth cannot resort to this procedure. According to Jewish law, a Jew by birth who has adopted another religion can easily return to his religion. However, the Ministry of Internal Affairs does not agree with this position. Because of this, the rabbinical courts began to practice the rite of return to the Jewish faith. It also includes discussions with the rabbinical judicial commission and ritual bathing in the mikveh.

But even with this in mind, the question of how famous personalities and in general a large number of people from Russia so cleverly acquire Israeli citizenship remains. Not everyone agrees to convert.

Israeli “Channel 13” lifted the veil of secrecy. It is noted that the policy of the Nativ agency is to “verify applicants as little as possible.” For example, Ksenia Sobchak, married to director Konstantin Bogomolov, notes Channel 13, arrived late in the evening at the Nativ office and received an Israeli identity card. After, as you can already understand, a procedure contrary to all the rules of Israel, she immediately returned to Moscow. That is, Sobchak was clearly not in the mood to stay for permanent residence in the host country, and she clearly did not go through the conversion procedure. Among the trump cards is only a son who is related to the Jews.

Approximately the same curious situation happened to Pugacheva and her husband. Of course, the mother of Maxim Galkin (recognized in Russia as a foreign agent. – “MK”) is Jewish. Then this paragraph corresponds to the Israeli Law of Return, which defines the concept of “Jew”: a person born of a Jewish mother is a Jew. Under this condition, all relatives can apply for citizenship. But again the religious question arises.

An exception, according to the law, is made by persons who, by virtue of their own convictions, voluntarily changed their religion. Here it is worth highlighting the words “voluntarily changed”, which provide a loophole for Israeli officials.

As Israeli lawyer Arthur Blaer notes, for many years Nativ and the Israeli Ministry of Internal Affairs have been using the only criterion for all time: if a person who applies for repatriation indicates “Christian”, “Muslim” and so on in the column on religion, thereby he loses his right to aliyah (repatriation) – and is denied. There are a lot of cases with filling in this column, and the answer is always the same: a categorical refusal.

However, in 2021, the Jerusalem District Court issued a new, non-trivial decision. The court rejected the arguments of the state and took the side of the applicant – a Jew, an adult, born of a Jewish mother. He indicated “Christian” in the questionnaire and then explained that he had been going to church since the age of 12, celebrating some Christian holidays and doing so out of habit – because his mother taught him to do so.

The judge noted in her decision that Jews who at a conscious age decided to convert to another religion cannot be equated with Jews who were introduced to Christianity, Islam or other faiths by their parents in childhood.

In the case of the Galkin couple (recognized in Russia as a foreign agent. – “MK”) and Pugacheva – the conditions are almost the same. And then a wedding in an Orthodox church may mean nothing. But remember that literally a year and a half before this event, Pugacheva’s husband converted to Orthodoxy … That is, at a conscious age. However, do not forget what was said just above: Jews by origin can return to their religion.