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by Naomi Darom from Haaretz weekend paper
The Interior Ministry is not interested in marriage between Israeli citizens and non-Jewish citizens of foreign countries, judging from the bureaucracy experienced by those trying to become citizens or to become Israeli residents. Welcome to the territory beyond the Law of Return
The narrow corridor of the visas department, at the rear of the Interior Ministry in Tel Aviv, is full of people and adorned with chains of Israeli flags. A clerk sits behind a window, answering questions and scheduling future appointments for naturalization procedures and for visas. Standing before her, in a disorganized line, are men and women, black and white, Israelis and foreigners. Along the walls, on two rows of chairs, sit more people and even some babies. Everyone is waiting. The wait for the clerk takes an average of three – four hours, but could easily be as long as seven hours. On Sunday morning at nine o’clock, the clerk begins by receiving number 390. An hour and a half later, the line has advanced by seven numbers.
Despite the crowd, the line is mostly silent –a silence due to tiredness from frustration of a never-ending wait. Suddenly an older man starts shouting at the clerk: “Can you explain to me why my wife can’t get a visa when prostitution institutions receive visas without any problems?” “Sir,” said the clerk, “I don’t know these institutions.” “I do!” Shouts another, “and they all get visas!”
“A”, a middle aged man who refused to identify himself, nods in agreement at the person shouting but remains sitting quietly. He is a resident of Israel with a Ukrainian wife: They met here and married in Ukraine. Now they have two children, the eldest is nine years old. Nine is also the number of years his wife has been trying to obtain citizenship. This morning, “A” is hoping, the clerk will finally grant his wife a blue identity card making her a citizen and able to begin the conversion process.
“It’s a rather lengthy process and I think that it is excessive, after all we already have two children,” he says mildly. However when I try to understand why the naturalization process, which should take no more than five years for a married couple, takes nine years, he loses his composure. “When my son, now five years old, was two months old, he was hospitalized for a long period. It was just when we were supposed to come here for the annual appointment and we called to say that we can’t attend – so they punished us and they added another four years. Now I’m just sitting here, year after year. ”
What do you mean they punished you? What did they say exactly?
“I called to say that the child is in the hospital – and they postponed the appointment and said it was fine, but it will delay the process for four more years.”
Did you try to argue?
“Yes, but I did not want to be too hostile. I don’t want to take out my anger here, it can be dangerous. There are people here who shout, but in my opinion one must be reasonable with them. And they should have been reasonable with married Israelis who already have children. I have been waiting here for two hours already, because the visa expires in two months.”
Why does one need to sit here? Why not make an appointment over the phone?
“I have been calling for a few days, but they don’t answer. They don’t have time to answer; you see what’s happening here. ”
“I don’t know anyone who has arrived without a lawyer and has not had his application rejected”, says Juan, who is sitting in the hallway with his Colombian partner. “When you come back with a lawyer, all of a sudden they say, ‘Okay.’” Juan and his wife also tried to deal with the Interior Ministry without legal representation – but the Ministry did not accept their request and ordered his partner to be deported from the country. A lawyer they approached managed to avoid the deportation, but a year and a half after starting the process, Juan’s partner still doesn’t have a work visa.
The first time I got there, I felt like I was in a railway station in Delhi,” says Gili Harpaz from the hall in the visa department. Harpaz, 33 years old, lives in Tel Aviv with her French partner and their daughter. “There are people crammed in everywhere, crying children. Filipinos, Africans – they all have the glazed and frustrated expressions of those who don’t understand anything. I was amazed to discover that the clerk who received us did not know English and conducted the entire interview in Hebrew, while I translated and spoke on behalf of my partner. The main message coming out of this place hung with Israeli flags is: ‘We do not want you here. We will make it as difficult as we possibly can for you. ‘”
Changing Regulations
Israelis who fall in love with people without Israeli citizenship and seek to obtain permanent residency for them, will quickly discover that the State of Israel does not take kindly to non-Jews. A French Jew will receive, upon arrival to Israel, an ID card and a generous absorption package, however if his non-Jewish neighbor falls in love with an Israeli and decides to emigrate to Israel, he will have to endure years of hassles before attaining permanent residency, let alone citizenship. If the Knesset approves civil marriage, the couple will indeed be able to marry in Israel – however the problem still would not be resolved.
Immigration is not simple in any country, but in Israel’s case, a unique combination of a lack of an immigration policy, overload and inefficiency, excessive suspicion and a lack of uniformity among the offices across the country, and what looks like an attempt to buy time by the Interior Ministry – will lead the couples involved down the rabbit hole of a long and convoluted bureaucracy.
Whoever starts the process must be prepared to prove the authenticity of his relationship over and over again, to obtain any document required of him, even if it is unattainable, to give up work days in order to wait in fluorescent lit corridors and pray not to be stuck with a clerk who is strict or particularly suspicious. Those who are well educated and well off, who are assisted by a lawyer, and who fall in love with either a U.S. or Western European citizen, will usually receive better treatment. Many who were interviewed for this article asked to remain anonymous lest they be labeled as “troublemakers” in the office, and having their documents more rigorously examined the next time they come to extend their visa. Why risk all their months and years of arduous effort?
Apart from the Law of Return, the field of immigration in Israel is not regulated by laws, rather by regulations, and the regulations are constantly changing. Non-Jewish spouses of Jews that immigrate with them to Israel, and their children, will receive citizenship automatically. However when Israeli citizens who already live here want the state to grant status to spouses who are not Jewish – they cannot do that within the framework of the Law of Return and have to go through a process called “family unification.”
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Attorney Oded Feller. “The Interior Ministry makes sure that there will be as few non-Jews as possible. “Photograph by: Oriah Tadmor”
“For years granting permanent residency to non-Jews was seen as a humanitarian exception, and we had to fight for a change in approach” says attorney Oded Feller, head of the Immigration and Status Department in the Civil Rights Association. “In recent years, after submitting many petitions, the Interior Ministry declares that ‘there is no doubt that the right to family life is important’, but not beyond that. In the early 2000s a comprehensive overhaul was made to the Entry into Israel Law: entire chapters dealing with detention and deportation were determined and an immigration police force was established. However, with regard to the status request – nothing has changed. The only thing that the law establishes is that the Interior Ministry may, at its discretion, grant entry visas and residence permits and to stipulate them with conditions. “
When compared to the American procedure for obtaining a green card, which Israelis who are married to Americans endure, the disarray in Israel is very unflattering. Although the American procedure has requirements that do not exist in Israel, such as demonstrating earning ability, for those who meet the requirements, the procedure is short, logical and effective: On average it takes half a year to obtain the green card, and after three years – six more months to obtain citizenship. All requests for green cards are delivered to a central institution that handles them according to uniform criteria. Attorney Tamar Carfeld, who specializes in green card proceedings and is a member of a law firm who are experts in immigration to the U.S., says that “In Israel, as opposed to the United States, there is no uniformity between the offices. Even if you have obtained all of the documents, some may request another document. It’s unpredictable.”
Often the court is required to hear cases of mixed couples, who have appealed the State’s refusal to grant them status and often these cases reach the Supreme Court. A quick search produces a myriad of rulings where the Population Administration was reprimanded for problematic misconduct, violation of regulations, missing management protocols, and especially a tendency towards strict interpretation of regulations, usually to the detriment of the couples.
“Obviously I can think of improvements to existing procedures, however initially I would be pleased if the Interior Ministry or the Population Administration acted according to the procedures they themselves established”, says attorney Yadin Elam, who specializes in helping mixed couples, where one of them is an Israeli citizen and the other is not Jewish. “Most of the problems we encounter are not with people who don’t meet the criteria, rather that the ministry denied these people with absurd allegations, put up additional obstacles not included in the regulations or persistently demanded documents required in the regulation in an unjustified and draconian manner.
“Couples approach me before they start the process, asking if a lawyer is required or if they can do it themselves. The honest answer is that since the procedure is unpredictable, it is impossible to say in advance whether they will need legal representation,” he adds. “There were couples who I’d assumed, that due to the circumstances in the relationship would need representation, but ultimately everything went relatively smoothly – and there were those I thought seemingly would not need representation, and specifically they were the ones who ended up facing difficulties.
A document that does not exist
Obtaining permanent resident status takes seven years for non-wed couples and five years for married couples. Until an advanced stage in the process, the foreign spouse is not entitled to National Insurance or HMO membership. The seven year journey begins with the list of documents required by the Interior Ministry that include a certificate good character, a unwed certificate, birth certificate, etc., which must be obtained from the country of origin of the foreigner. However obtaining the list is sometimes a challenge in itself.
Obtaining the list in an orderly manner is an almost impossible task”, says Ilana from Tel Aviv. Ilana met the Italian Davida through mutual friends. Three years ago an affair developed between the two of them, and Davida came to live in Israel (full disclosure – Ilana is my neighbor and I have written letters of recommendation for her to the Interior Ministry). “I have three different lists – one from the internet, one from the information desk of the Interior Ministry, and one from the Population Department. Each one is a little different. We prepared the documents according to the longest list, and when we arrived at the appointment we found out that we were missing a document declaring that we have no children. Why isn’t it on the list? Some of the documents can cost hundreds of dollars, need to be notarized, and so on”.
The Interior Ministry currently maintains an Information and Registration Call Center for mixed couples, through which, according to them, appointments can be scheduled or questions asked. I called the number. After waiting for around half an hour, which included a mysterious disconnection, a courteous service representative answered, wrote down my details and promised they would get back to me in two – three days to schedule an appointment. More than three weeks have passed since then, and I’m still waiting. Registering on the website yielded a similar result (or lack thereof). For those interested in starting the process, it would be in their best interests to physically go to the office, sit there and wait in line.
The Interior Ministry’s response was “scheduling appointments for interviews is at the top of our agenda, with continuous improvements being made to the process of scheduling appointments without disturbing the applicants. The claims raised in your letter will be examined and where improvement is necessary – we’ll ensure that it gets done. “
Sometimes, just obtaining the documents themselves jeopardizes the entire process. “Is it possible that the Interior Ministry requires a document that does not exist?” asked an internet user in the Tapuz forum for mixed couples. He explained that two months ago he brought his wife and daughter to Israel from Germany. They took care of all the documents, except for a unwed certificate. This certificate doesn’t exist in Germany; there is only a marriage certificate. “Even if she goes back to Germany for it, they won’t issue her such a document”, he writes, “in a month my wife’s and daughter’s tourist visa expires, and I don’t know what to do”.
The answer to the internet user’s quandary is – yes, the Interior Ministry most definitely routinely requests documents that are very difficult, or impossible to obtain in the country of origin of the foreign citizen, and even insists upon them. It starts with the certificate of good character, birth certificate and personal status: Documents which are not only required by the ministry – but they must also be authorized and certified,” says Fleur. “What is authorization? If the country is signed on the document as apostille (international treaty for document approval – N.D.) it’s quite easy: Get the document issued with an apostille seal that is recognized in Israel. If not, the relevant ministry there will issue the certificate, the Foreign Ministry of the country will authorize the signature and the Israeli embassy will confirm the two signatures.
“However, let’s take for example the type of story that is repeated over and over again – A citizen whose spouse is Moroccan. How does he obtain a certificate of good character from Morocco? His family there, if he has any, must obtain a certificate of good character, get whoever needs to sign it to do so, and then send it to the Moroccan Foreign Ministry, for approval, the send it to the Moroccan Consulate in Paris for authorization, and then the Israeli consulate in France has to authorize that it’s from Morocco – and then it will come to Israel. It is complicated and expensive. Or for an unwed certificate: In some countries, especially in Eastern Europe, such a document simply does not exist. The Interior Ministry will send you to court in the country of origin, to declare that you’re not married. This is how people get stuck without a visa. The Interior Ministry itself creates illegal aliens”.
Another common case has to do with the length of time remaining for passport validity: the Interior Ministry requires two years as a condition to start the status application process however in many countries it is impossible to extend the validity of the passport if another year or more remains before it expires. But for some reason, the Tel Aviv office makes its own rules and requires a passport that is valid for three years.
Couples who have not obtained the proper document may be trapped in a Kafkaesque maze. Yehuda Kush, 61 years old, met Edita Bianzon in 2006, a foreign worker from the Philippines, in a placement office for foreign workers where he worked in Tel Aviv. They had a relationship, which led to a pregnancy. They moved in together, created a financial agreement and a shared life and applied for permanent residency at the Interior Ministry. Seven years have passed since then, their son, Or is already in school, but Edita still sits at home without a work permit, not to mention permanent residence.
The problem was obtaining the documents – birth certificate, certificate of good character, etc. – from the Philippines. “She came from a small village where people do not know how to read and write, and travelling to Manila to get the documents is a big deal,” explains Cush. “You have to take one person who knows how to read, one who can write, and one who knows the way. We did not have the money for that. “
Three years ago the couple moved to Ofakim and tried to start the process again at the Interior Ministry in Beersheba. This time all the documents were obtained and they successfully passed a couples interview, and after a month received a phone call inviting them to come to the Interior Ministry. “I said to Edita, this is it, this evening we’ll have a celebration,” says Cush. “I arrived at the office overjoyed, where they tell me – sign this letter, which says that within 14 days she has to leave the country. I said, how can she leave, she has an Israeli child, how will he grow up without a mother? They told me, that’s the regulation.”
The couple was missing one document: an unwed certificate. Bianzon had a husband in the Philippines. She had not lived with him for years – but in the Philippines, a Catholic country, divorce isn’t possible, a marriage can only be nullified. The procedure costs thousands of dollars for official opinions and fees. In addition, Bianzon’s husband demanded another $ 5,000 for him to consent to the process. Kush and Bianzon did not want to, and could not afford to, pay this amount.
Tali Almi, the Public Inquiries Coordinator in Jerusalem and the South in the Association for Civil Rights who dealt with the case with attorney Tali Hassan, states that according to Israeli case law relationships are not judged by the formal aspect, i.e. the documents, rather they are judged according to the practical aspect – the existence of a relationship over time. Yehuda and Edita passed a couples interview successfully and submitted endless documents that proved that they live together, however it wasn’t enough for the Interior Ministry in Beersheba. The couple contacted the Association for Civil Rights, who wrote a letter to the Interior Ministry. The Interior Ministry’s reply was negative four months later, even though it is supposed to provide a response within 45 days.
The Association turned to the Appellate Committee – an appellate body for administrative objections to the Population Administration’s decisions. The Interior Ministry required nine months to respond to the committee regarding the Association’s claims, and ultimately, in June, they ruled in favor of Yehuda and Edita. An appointment was set for November. “I asked, Why another four months?’ I was told, ‘The file needs to be ordered from Jerusalem’. How long does that take?” asks Cush. “It’s very rare that the Appellate Committee accepts the objections”, says Almi, “However in this case the Interior Ministry stubbornly insisted not to act according to the ruling. Their refusal to admit the couple to the gradual process was very problematic.”
Two weeks ago, when Kush finally arrived at the Interior Ministry to begin the process, he discovered that his struggles were not over. “They told me they needed to send the decision down to the exceptions committee. I said, ‘what are you taking about; a decision has already been made by the Appellate Committee?’ She answered that she cannot do anything without the headquarters’ approval. I asked how long an answer from headquarters would take, and she answered: ‘For the last couple I handled, it took a year and a half.”
“The conduct of the Population Administration in this grim affair makes its own Appellate Committee into a laughing stock”, says Tal Hassin from the Association for Civil Rights, who represented the two. “The Administration has no legal authority to appeal the decisions of the Appellate Committee, to hold hearings about them, to request authorization for them, or to transfer it to some other mysterious committee. Once the decision has been made regarding the objection, the Administration must uphold it without delay, and stop mistreating a couple who have been living together for many years and are raising a child in Israel. “
“You must understand,” says Cush, “the Interior Ministry doesn’t like non-Jews. It is pure racism. They have no compassion, they have no respect for human dignity. It’s not the clerks – rather it’s the “commander’s disposition”, especially the former interior minister, Eli Yishai. For seven years I have been around foreigners, and I see the lack of compassion for them, “he adds,” the Torah mentions preserving Hagar’s dignity 42 times. They don’t fulfill even one of them. “
According to the Interior Ministry, “The couple first filed an application for a case of cohabitation in 2007. A letter with a request to send in the missing documents and a summons to an initial meeting were ignored and the couple did not appear at the meeting. For two years they repeatedly returned to the office without any documents. Even though Ms. Bianzon was issued a valid visa for departing to her homeland and the required documents were issued. Ultimately, the case was closed. In July 2009, the couple returned to open a new case for relationship status but again did not present the required documents.
Eventually, in 2011, after presenting part of the documents, they were summoned for an interview, but as it turned out Ms. Bianzon is married with children in the Philippines, and the couple did not present a document dissolving the marriage. When the reason for refusal became clear (financial demands by the spouse in the Philippines) the Ministry would have settled for evidence showing an attempt at dissolving the marriage (which isn’t dependent on the Filipino spouse), however these documents were also not provided. For all these reasons their application was denied. Recently it was decided to further examine the case and it is currently being discussed. In light of this chain of events, as partially described here, one cannot argue that it is the Ministry that is dragging its feet; and this claim is totally removed from the reality of the events themselves.
A Second World Country
Even in simpler cases, obtaining documents can become a trans-Atlantic operation. Orit and John (pseudonyms) met four years ago on a reserve in a country in Africa. She came to travel, and he worked as the maintenance manager of the reserve. “It was just like in my romantic imagination. A great guy, and we realized at once that we were in love, and still are”, says Orit, who is 40 years old.
The couple decided to settle in Israel. “When I came to Israel I got very nervous. I thought about all the horror stories I had heard about the Interior Ministry and asked, ‘How is this done?’” Orit decided to consult with a lawyer. “She said, ‘It’s so complicated, if you’re not serious – forget about it. If you are serious – do exactly as I say.’ Luckily, I was smart enough to listen. The first meeting with the Interior Ministry was rattling; I always considered myself a person with rights. There you realize you don’t have any. The first time I waited in Tel Aviv for seven hours to make an appointment. Why? Because. Shut up and be a good girl.”
The lawyer advised Orit to bring all of the papers from John‘s country of origin, and marry him before she brings him to Israel. Orit traveled to Africa, “and then the seven circles of hell began. ‘You want this document? No problem, a month of work.’ Meanwhile I have to live there in the capital, where living is very expensive. Okay, so one can shorten the process – give money under the table, and in three days you’ll get what you want. I was there for three – four months, and I spent about 100 thousand shekels.”
The country in which John lived is not a signatory of the Apostille Convention, and therefore Orit had to travel to get the documents approved in another country. “It’s very hard to be at the height of being in love, and go through four months of obtaining documents. It really tore me up”. However the encounter with Africa has not improved her opinion of Israel. “I always say we live in a second world country. Not corrupt like the Third World, but not organized like Sweden or Canada. Believe me, if it was possible to bribe someone to shorten the process – I would do it”.
Months passed from the moment that John landed in Israel until he received his work visa, during which Orit supported both of them. After receiving the visa they must return to the ministry each year, to prove the authenticity of their relationship over and over again: presenting an apartment contract, twelve months of electricity and telephone bills and a letter from references who know both of them. “An endless list of obligations”, says Orit, “and everything needs to be brought. If they decide to screw you, they can do so easily. They actually didn’t speak to us impolitely or humiliate us. They really have to handle a complicated objective situation”, she says about the office’s clerks, “the problem is the policy, rather than the clerks”.
However sometimes the clerks are also the problem. Noga, a student from Tel Aviv, met Ravi (pseudonyms), a communications student and a professional athlete, on one of Asia’s beaches. “Within two days we were inseparable. It was instantaneous”, she says. “At first I didn’t think it would go beyond the trip. However in the end we were together for three weeks; we delayed our return from the trip, he missed all his tests – sort of getting carried away. In the end I had to go home. But when we parted, we knew we weren’t going to give each other up.”
Noga returned home, and the couple kept in touch daily. It soon became clear to Noga that in order to bring Ravi to Israel, she needs to invite him and deposit fifteen thousand shekels with the Interior Ministry for this purpose. Fortunately for them, while the application was being filed Ravi received a scholarship to a university and came to Israel with a student visa. When he arrived, after seven months of not seeing each other, “it was a little weird at first, then the ice was broken. It’s as if we never parted”.
Immediately when Ravi landed in Israel, four months ago, the couple made an appointment at the Interior Ministry, in order to replace his student visa with a work visa. They gathered documents and collected them in a huge binder. “I searched through document lists and checked forums, because I realized that the Interior Ministry is really looking for what you do not have – a single wrong signature is enough, and they send him to bring it all in again”.
Three months ago, they came to the Interior Ministry in Tel Aviv, waited two hours in line and sat in front of a clerk. “He asked to see documents from the university, verifying Ravi really is a student. It was a total of two photocopied pages; however the first page was accidentally copied twice. The clerk looked at the first page, and when Ravi saw that it was doubled said to him, ‘Go on to the next page’. The clerk ripped out the pages, and said in Hebrew, ‘What are you wasting my time for’, and tossed them in Ravi’s face “.
What did you do?
We just stood there silent. There is nothing to do, they need to finish what they’re doing and that’s it. It’s really scary to say something which they wouldn’t like. They have all the power.”
A couples interview was set up for them in another four months: Meanwhile Ravi is learning some Hebrew in ulpan and is traveling the country (he was especially enthralled by Jerusalem), but without a work visa he is bored, and Noga is struggling to sustain them both.
“There isn’t a country that’s easy to emigrate to, and I don’t think we should let everyone in”, says Noga, “but until I went through it myself, I did not think that our country was so closed and suspicious. In every office the requirements are a bit different – and you are completely at the mercy of the clerk’s mood.”
The Interior Ministry’s response was: “The Immigration Authority attaches great importance to the issue of providing service, with an emphasis on providing service that is professional, courteous and efficient, and for that purpose runs training courses and conferences for employees. We accept all inquiries on the issue of service and it is handled very seriously to see if there is any truth to the complaints and make sure that the issues do not reoccur. It is difficult to respond to the statements put forward in your claim, since they are general, however we are happy to receive the details of the cases and examine them individually.”
Invasion of privacy
Specifically in relationship matters, the State of Israel proves to be surprisingly liberal: unlike the United States, and probably due to the fact that mixed couples cannot marry in Israel, even common-law and same-sex couples receive status. However when it comes to the process itself, the Interior Ministry spares no hassle. In the United States, says Carfeld, a couple married for more than two years will at most be asked to present a marriage certificate, and nothing else. Only if the couple is married for less than two years, or if there is any suspicion about the authenticity of their relationship – for example, if there is a significant age difference between them – they have to undergo a relationship examination process.
In the State of Israel on the other hand, every couple – whether they are married for a decade, and if they have children – will have to file and save any document that can attest to their relationship. A sample list of required documents includes: a marriage certificate, a lease, a detailed letter that explains how they met, electricity and telephone bills, shared photos from various events, letters from friends and family attesting to the authenticity of the relationship, printouts of calls between the couple, a bank statement, and if there exists – airline tickets and receipts for hotel rooms where they stayed together.
In the verdict of Rosa Vistal versus the State of Israel from 2009, the judge admonished the Interior Ministry, that despite demanding a lengthy list of documents from the couple to prove the authenticity of their relationship – the final decision was based solely on the interviewer’s impression. If this is so, why does the Ministry require so many documents? The State has the solutions.
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Attorney Yadin Elam. “They have an enormous amount of power.” “Photograph by: Moti Milrod”
The interview itself is the couple’s greatest fear. “The feeling is that it really depends on who you end up with,” says Elam. “The specific clerk who interviews the couple has enormous power, and it seems that the Population Administration doesn’t care about anything except for drawing it out, so the process can be completely unpredictable. There is the possibility of an appeal, but a couple who weren’t represented in advance isn’t always familiar with the process and in the last two years the appeal process of the office’s decisions has become significantly more complex.”
The couple interviews are the main feature of mixed couples’ petitions against the state. In one of the judgments, from 2011, the judge ruled in favor of the couple because the interview protocol was incomplete, and it was evident that the protocol submitted, in her words, had deliberate omissions of information to the detriment of the couple. In another judgment it was stated that the petitioners were asked 104 questions. There were contradictory answers on only nine of the topics, and it constituted grounds for disqualification.
In 2009, in the Vistal verdict, which also reached the press, the District Court judge sharply rebuked the Interior Ministry for disqualifying a couple who met all of the criteria, based solely on the fact that the woman, who is of Filipino origin, was older than her Israeli partner and it appeared “strange” to the interviewer. “The Supreme Court already ruled, that a differentiation must be made with regard to fictitious marriages and marriages of convenience”, says Elam. “All marriages are marriages of convenience: It is better to be married, than not to be. Therefore even if the woman is Filipino and the Israeli man is 20 years older than her, she married because she prefers to stay in the country, and he knows that this is his only chance for a younger wife, said the court, as long as they are really a couple and the marriage is not only to receive status, it’s a relationship that needs to be respected.”
It should be noted that conditions are better for those who don’t fall in love with foreign workers or asylum seekers: The Interior Ministry treats this type of relationship with even more suspicion than usual.
Elam explains that in a case where the couple is disqualified, the Interior Ministry needs to justify its decision, and often the reason is due to contradictory answers between the spouses, who are interviewed separately but are asked identical questions. “The courts have confronted the Interior Ministry a number of times already, saying not every contradiction is a reason not to believe in the authenticity of the relationship; if you ask 50 questions, and you find two contradictions which are insignificant, that’s not a reason not to believe the authenticity of the relationship”. You thought to resolve the matter by consulting with an experienced attorney? You should know, couples can be disqualified by being overly prepared for the interview.
Feller shoots off a list of popular questions: “How much sugar does he like in his coffee? What did you eat last night? What did he give you for your birthday? What does he smoke? Which bus does she take to work? How many stops does it have? What color are her eyes? And the critical question that most people get wrong – when did you meet and when was the moment you became a couple? One thinks that they became a couple when they first started going out, and the other thinks it happened when they moved in together. And if your partner is a migrant worker from Nigeria, for example, you have never met his family. If you are asked you won’t know who his mother is, who his father is, which school did he attend, and his major. Details you would know about an Israeli partner”.
The paradox is that this process has made us much more formally committed to each other”, says Gil Harpaz, the Director of Public Relations in the “Geneva Initiative”. She met the French Fabrice six years ago, at an isolated hostel in Dharamsala: The couple spent several months in France together, and when Harpaz returned to Israel and got a job, Fabrice decided to give a Tel Aviv relationship a chance.
Harpaz has a legal education and she consulted with an attorney, who prepared her for the process. “He asked us why we didn’t get married. Fabrice said that we’re still at the beginning of the relationship, and besides neither of us are really into weddings. But the lawyer said – ‘No, no, you cannot say something like that. The answer is that you are not married, but see yourselves as married for all intents and purposes. Don’t you dare say that are boyfriend and girlfriend. From your perspective, you have found the person who you want to spend your life with’. Now it is true, but at the first meeting in the Interior Ministry, after several months of touring in India and Europe, to go there and say that, we have found the person with whom we want to grow old with – it’s not exactly where we were at that moment.”
“M.”, an undergraduate student in the social sciences, interviewed mixed couples for a seminar paper she wrote about the process they go through in the Interior Ministry. “You do not just come and present documents, and answer some questions. You come and put on performances to win over the clerks; present a relationship that is not necessarily the real one, but what they want to see.”
And what is this relationship?
“A romantic loving relationship in sociological terms. Pictures of the couple having fun, being photographed together embracing, with many friends who can attest to the sincerity of the relationship. Most of the couples know which pictures portray a relationship and start embracing and getting photographed at every family event, preferably with a yarmulke. I know a couple that was disqualified because the Indian partner did not know English well enough, so how can it be that there is a relationship? As though a relationship must be based on intimate conversations into the night. A partner from Western Europe and a partner from India are treated differently.”
“M.” speaks about a couple who she interviewed, a younger Filipino and an older Israeli male. “He was asked in the interview in Hebrew, assuming she wouldn’t understand, if you are trying to get rid of her, tell me and I’ll help you, because it seems like you’re ashamed.”
“I have no doubt that the state should make sure that those who come aren’t criminals,” says Ilana, Davida’s partner, “but I don’t think that for seven years you need to bring in each year letters from friends and colleagues. Every month, when we get the bills, I photocopy them put them in the folder. Every year I think, two years ago I asked for a letter from the neighbors on the first floor, a year ago from those on the second floor, so this year we’ll ask friends from work. Every time you need to fill out the same form, to supply passport photos that are already in their file.”
Those who begin the process – should forget about their right to privacy in advance, as they will be asked, as Ilana and Davida were, to provide printouts of telephone and Skype calls between the couple. Perhaps, like Kim (a pseudonym), an Australian citizen living here for five years with her Israeli husband and their joint child, you will be asked to provide the genetic tests conducted by the couple before the pregnancy. “I thought they would return the copies of the test after the interview, but the clerk took them. I asked why, and she said, ‘we like to file these type of things’”, says Kim, who still looks upset. “I didn’t protest because I couldn’t do anything. But I think it’s really terrible. They know much more about me than I want them to know, just because I’m not Jewish.”
“It’s very Judeo-centric”, says Henrik (a pseudonym), “or you could call it worse names, like racism.” Henrik, a former dancer from Denmark, met his Israeli partner, also a dancer, when he lived in Tel Aviv for four years in the early 2000s while he was dancing with the Batsheva Dance Company. “I was young, I lived in a very carefree environment, they took care of a visa and everything. I didn’t have to do anything. I traveled around the world and met nice people.”
The relationship with his future wife evolved, and in the mid-2000s they moved to Denmark and gave birth to a child, now nine years old. “The process in Denmark was quite simple”, he says, “We came, we submitted documents and that was it”. However when they returned to Israel in 2010, they discovered that the approach was different here. “It is always accompanied by suspicion and unpleasant investigations which are very personal. As if we are trying to cheat. Another document and another document. Details of phone calls, letters from family members, photos. It’s too personal.”
When the couple had a second child, “the Interior Ministry became very unpleasant. At the Hospital they didn’t want to register me as the father, because I was in the middle of the process. We arrived for a meeting at the Interior Ministry with the baby in a stroller, gave them all the documents they wanted. We explained that we already have a child together, but they wanted to send us for tissue analysis. Only when my wife started screaming and crying, were they suddenly able to do things that were impossible before.”
Similarly Meital Raveh, 36 years old, a lawyer who lives in Ramat Gan, could not register her Dutch partner, Vim, as the father of their joint child, currently a year old. Vim and Meital met in India, when their trains ran late. They’ve been here for five years, but when their son was born Vim wasn’t registered as the father for two reasons: as he is not a member of an HMO (like anyone not yet given permanent resident status) and according to the regulations it is only permitted to register him as “claiming” to be the father. “Their attitude is that they determine who the father is. They check whether the couple has a shared file, if he was present at the birth, if the couple has been living together for a certain period. Very strict criteria.”
The Interior Ministry’s response was: “Documents proving cohabitation are one of the tools required to examine the relationship and are not a substitute for a meeting with the couple, and conducting the interview. When evaluating a candidate for citizenship or residence within its territory, it’s the State’s duty to determine the required tools for the process of receiving the status. Interviews are conducted for people, by people, and naturally every interview is different, where the basis for all interviews is the same. It is a bit puzzling to demand that all interviews be identical in all aspects, and this demand ignores that human beings are involved in the process. “
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Meital Raveh (36) and Vim Midlbose (33), country of origin: Holland, length of time in Israel: five years, residence: Ramat Gan.
A Racist Policy?
Is Henrik correct? Is the practice of granting status to foreigners in Israel racist? The previous Interior Minister never concealed his opinion that maintaining the Jewish character of the state comes first. The opinion of the current Interior Minister on the topic has not yet been heard. Oded Feller argues that the answer to the question is complex. “Israel isn’t the only country whose laws give priority to returning to the country and giving status to a particular ethnic group. Israel is an exception as that is all it has. This leads to a much broader question which is if the Law of Return is racist. Nevertheless”, he adds, “it is clear that the Interior Ministry makes it difficult, it doesn’t want them here. It sees itself as a gatekeeper who makes sure that there should be as few non–Jews as possible.”
Elam says: “I once asked someone who represented the Interior Ministry, how does he explain the fact that often the Interior Ministry insists on not compromising, even when the judge hearing the case clarifies to the attorney that the verdict will be to the detriment of the Ministry. He replied that what interests the Interior Ministry is time. If the process is supposed to last seven years and it lasted ten years, we gained three years. Maybe the couple will give up and maybe they will split up. I know of couples who despair simply because they’re sick of the feet-dragging. “
“A.”, a former executive in the Population Administration who is close to the Interior Ministry to this day, says: “”It seems that Eli Yishai could not determine the policy he wanted – not to let non-Jews in at all, because the Justice Department would not let him, so he set policy by not setting policy. It’s very easy to come to the local office and the Population Administration and tell them what you want, even without determining policy. “
However “A.” points to a few more possible reasons for the bureaucratic complicatedness, besides racism. “The biggest problem in the field of immigration is that it is not worth money. The Interior Ministry has three main fields – the Population Administration, the local government, and urban planning and construction. In the two other fields there are players involved with lots of power and interests. In the field of population there are no such players, so policy isn’t determined. When public policy is determined, one should always ask who it serves. Who does the policy in the field of immigration serve? Not the powerful people. So you have an overblown immigration police, but to transfer a file from the office in Tel Aviv to the one in Ramle takes two months. “
“And when there is a policy,” he adds, “the interpretation is very broad. There is no consistent policy at the clerk and executive level, there are no set regulations and every clerk asks himself, ‘If I make the process easier, what might I cause to occur? I could be wrong. However, if I don’t give approval, it will get passed on, upwards’. A clerk who earns a meager wage sees twenty people a day, and is responsible for their fate. Everything goes through the legal office of the Population Administration, and in practice it is them who outline policy.”
“The very fact that I am going through this whole nuisance, isn’t because my partner is not Israeli, but rather it’s because of his religion – which is unacceptable to me”, says Ilana. “”After all, if he was a Jew, he would immigrate, receive citizenship, money, rights, even if the sister’s aunt’s grandmother was Jewish way back when. Many countries have quotas, but the emphasis on religion is what makes this process so racist. This racism is directed towards all non-Jews and also towards me, because I’m the one that brought the non-Jew to the State of Israel.”
The Interior Ministry in response stated “the ultimate authority that determines immigration policy is the government of Israel and with it the court rulings. However, the individual issues are handled by the Population and Immigration Authority. The gradual process has existed for many years, even before MK Yishai entered his position, and therefore the references to his stance are improper and stem from personal opinions. The process is intended for ‘Non-Israelis’ and has no connection to Judaism.”
