Newsroom:
Legal Aid Center for Olim (LACO)
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Haaretz
June 7, 2022And this would not be the first time the Interior Ministry has chosen to ignore this ruling. Indeed, the Israel Religious Action Center – the advocacy arm of the Reform movement in Israel – is in the process of challenging a handful of similar cases.
A Jew is defined by the Law of Return as someone born to a Jewish mother or someone who has undergone conversion in a recognized Jewish community. Under the Law of Return, a Jew, the child of a Jewish father and the grandchild of a Jewish grandfather are all eligible for aliyah – as are their spouses. The law does not stipulate whether the widow or widower of a Jew, the widow or widowers of the child of a Jewish father or the widow or widower of the grandchild of a Jewish grandfather are also eligible (assuming that they are not Jewish themselves). Until 2016, however, the Jewish Agency and the Interior Ministry interpreted the law to mean that they are.
It was then that the Interior Ministry changed its policy, ruling that only widows or widowers of Jews would be allowed to immigrate. Widows or widowers of children of Jewish fathers and widows and widowers of grandchildren of Jewish grandfathers would not.
On behalf of a group of widows and widowers who had been denied Israeli citizenship as a result of this 2016 ruling, IRAC challenged the Interior Ministry in the High Court and won. Unwilling to accept the August 2021 verdict, Interior Ministry Ayelet Shaked requested another hearing (such requests are permitted when High Court verdicts are split). Supreme Court President Esther Hayut has yet to rule on Shaked’s request, but according to the law, the verdict is binding until it is overturned.
According to attorney Nicole Maor, director of the Legal Aid Center for Olim at IRAC, the number of widows and widowers of individuals who would have been eligible for aliyah and apply for citizenship each year is no more than a dozen.
Noting that the High Court has ruled in favor of the widows and widowers, she said: “It is hard to understand how the Interior Ministry can justify its recent decisions to deny these widows aliyah status, especially in light of the war in the Ukraine where the lives of men are in constant danger. It is very worrying that the Interior Ministry is ignoring its legal obligations and thus threatening one of the basic tenets of democracy.”
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Haaretz
April 11, 2022Nicole Maor, director of the Legal Aid Center for Olim at the Israel Religious Action Center, is currently trying to help a group of about 20 converts from Ukraine book appointments at the Interior Ministry so they can begin the aliyah process. “There is such a backlog these days that you need to wait months,” she said, “which makes things even harder for these people.”
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The Forward
February 22, 2022“We do not believe this rule should apply in Israel, which as a Jewish state is a unique community,” said attorney Nicole Maor, director of the Legal Aid Center for Olim at IRAC. “Indeed, it is one big Jewish community and by virtue of the fact that they are living here in Israel, these converts are actively involved in a Jewish community.”
IRAC recently sent a letter to the ministry requesting that it not apply this rule in Israel. It has also sent a letter to the Attorney General’s Office charging that the ministry has misinterpreted the essence of the High Court ruling in its treatment of the group in waiting. According to Maor, it has not received responses to either of these letters.
Some of the converts were rejected on the grounds that their conversions were deemed fictitious and undertaken for the sole purpose of obtaining status in Israel.
IRAC has appealed all the rejections with the ministry. Except for one case, in which the appeal has already been rejected, the ministry has yet to respond to the appeals. IRAC is now appealing the one final rejection in Jerusalem District Court.
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Haaretz
February 8, 2022The petition against the state was submitted by the Israel Religious Action Center, the advocacy arm of the Reform movement in Israel, on behalf of the two denominations.
It is the latest development in a case that has been on hold for many years, in anticipation of a High Court ruling on the legitimacy of Reform and Conservative conversions performed in Israel. A landmark ruling last March by the High Court of Justice recognized such non-Orthodox conversions for the purpose of the Law of Return, which determines who is eligible to immigrate to Israel.
Lawyers from the Israel Religious Action Center will argue that if Reform and Conservative conversions are recognized for the purpose of the Law of Return, the men who convert through these movements should be entitled to the same benefits as those who convert through the state-run Orthodox system. (Men who undergo Orthodox conversions privately in Israel must also pay for their circumcisions.)
“It is regretful that even after the March 2021 ruling, which required the state to recognize Reform and Conservative conversions for the purpose of the Law of Return, the state insists on continuing with its discriminatory policy,” said Nicole Maor, the attorney for the Israel Religious Action Center handling the case.
“This blatant discrimination, which requires Reform and Conservative converts to pay out of pocket thousands of shekels for a ritual that symbolizes their entry into the Jewish people, while Orthodox converts through the state system get funding, must end immediately.”
The Israel Religious Action Center first went to court in 2009 demanding state funding for circumcisions performed on Reform and Conservative converts. Several months later, the state and the movements agreed to put the case on hold until the High Court had ruled on whether Reform and Conservative conversions performed in Israel should be recognized under the Law of Return.
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Haaretz
January 5,2022The Israel Religious Action Center, which appealed the decision, noted that Kibita has been living on Ketura, a kibbutz affiliated with the Conservative-Masorti movement, since moving to Israel, where he is an active member of the religious community. It noted that back in Uganda, he had studied in a Jewish school and was an active member of the Jewish community there as well.
His application for citizenship had been viewed as a test case for the landmark Supreme Court ruling last March that recognized conversions performed in Israel by the Conservative and Reform movements. Kibita is the first member of the Abayudaya community to apply for citizenship in Israel.
In 2018, he applied for citizenship under the Law of Return but was rejected. The Interior Ministry told him that his conversion did not meet the required criteria. In response, Kibita, together with the Conservative movement in Israel, petitioned the High Court. They were represented by IRAC, the advocacy arm of he Reform movement in Israel.
Tal, an active member of the Conservative movement, wrote that IRAC planned to appeal the decision in court – a move he supported. “Regardless of how the court rules, I assume we can all agree that any person facing fateful decisions about his future deserves at least to have his day in court without the threat of deportation. This is especially true when it comes to a Jew who arrived in Israel on a Jewish Agency program, is active in the community and the synagogue of Kibbutz Ketura and, of course, has proven himself to be a law-abiding resident who has integrated well into the Israeli economy.”
2022
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Haaretz
December 13, 2021In 2018, he applied for citizenship under the Law of Return but was rejected. The Interior Ministry told him that his conversion did not meet the required criteria. In response, Kibita, together with the Conservative movement in Israel, petitioned the High Court. They were represented by the Israel Religious Action Center, the advocacy arm of the Reform movement in the country.
Kibita has 21 days to appeal the decision. His lawyer Nicole Maor – director of the Legal Aid Center for Olim at IRAC – said it would be appealed.
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Haaretz
December 6, 2021To date, only two members of this group have been approved for citizenship.
Another was rejected (the Israel Religious Action Center, an advocacy group, has appealed the decision), while all the others are waiting for word on whether they will be allowed to stay in the country. Most of them have already been interviewed.
Nearly 50 other converts applied for citizenship after the March ruling. Out of this group, only one convert has thus far been approved for citizenship, and barely a handful have been interviewed.
“Whether because of personnel constraints or other reasons I prefer not to think about, the simple fact is that the Interior Ministry is not implementing a High Court decision in a way that I would consider reasonable,” said Nicole Maor, an IRAC lawyer who is representing these converts.
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Israel Hayom
December 1, 2021Orly Erez-Likhovski, head of the Israel Religious Action Center, said, "The Reform Movement offers an inclusive conversion, in the framework of which hundreds of men and women convert every year.
"These conversions are recognized under the Law of Return and the population registry and we will insist that the recognition of these conversions not be harmed within the framework of the new conversion legislation," she said.
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The Jerusalem Post
August 30, 2021The ruling was welcomed by the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), the legal arm of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, for allowing families to be reunited in Israel. It was denounced by Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked and others as undermining the Law of Return and the Jewish foundations of the state.
The ruling is particularly relevant for men and women whose children have already moved to Israel but who have in recent years been blocked by the Interior Ministry from entering after their spouses passed away, IRAC attorney Nicole Maor said.
The IRAC then began receiving requests for assistance from people in this category, including those who had children in Israel, Maor said.
Despite the criticism voiced against the decision, the High Court’s ruling actually strengthens the Law of Return since it will “strengthen the connection of the third generation and their desire to make aliyah, in the knowledge that their parents will be able to join them if they so wish,” Maor said.
IRAC executive director Anat Hoffman applauded what she said was a “far-reaching ruling that is life-changing for Israeli families who have waited, sometimes for years, to be reunited with their loved ones... Finally, these individuals, who are connected with the Jewish people, can make their home with their families in the Jewish state.”
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Haaretz
July 4, 2021According to the Law of Return, Jews of choice are eligible to immigrate to Israel so long as they were converted in “recognized” Jewish communities. The Israel Religious Action Center, the advocacy arm of the Reform movement in Israel, maintains that Adat Israel, the Reform community in Guatemala, has “recognized” status because it was accepted into the World Union for Progressive Judaism – the umbrella association of Reform congregations from around the world.
Nicole Maor, director of the Legal Aid Center for Olim at IRAC who represented both Kibita and Veliz, said it was time for the Jewish Agency and the Diaspora Affairs Ministry to “take up the issue” of emerging Jewish communities.
“To claim that converts in these communities are taking advantage of the state of Israel and that their conversions shouldn’t be recognized is simply unfair and doesn’t take into account the current realities of the Jewish world,” she said.
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The Jerusalem Post
March 8, 2021Attorney Nicole Maor of the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), the legal arm of the Reform Movement in Israel, notes that in 2003 it filed a petition demanding that a couple wishing to adopt a non-Jewish child in Israel be allowed to convert that child through the Reform or Masorti movement’s conversion programs.
IRAC’s petition demands that the Child Services Authority also allow the conversion authorities of the Reform and Masorti movement to issue permission for such adoptions.
ANOTHER PETITION filed by IRAC in 2009 demands that the state pay for Brit Milah [circumcision] ceremonies for male Reform and Masorti converts, as it does for converts through the State Conversion Authority.
In 2011, the High Court decided that final rulings on both these decisions must wait until the broader issue of non-Orthodox conversions in Israel is resolved.
Since the court issued a ruling on that issue last week, Maor says IRAC is poised to file a request to the High Court this week asking that it now rule on the two outstanding petitions.
IRAC director Rabbi Noa Sattath said that another major issue her organization will be working on is that of the rights of so-called emerging communities.
These communities are located mainly in Africa and Latin America and are either comprised of groups who have undergone mass conversion such as the Abayudaya community in Uganda, similar groups of mass converts in Latin America, or other groups claiming affinity to or descent from the Jewish people.
The Interior Ministry has said, however, that communities established by converts are not eligible for recognition by the Jewish Agency or for citizenship in Israel, something IRAC intends to challenge.
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The Forward
March 3, 2021Read Anat Hoffman’s op-ed about the recent Supreme Court ruling recognizing Reform and Conservative conversions performed in Israel.
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The New York Times
March 1, 2021 -
The Jerusalem Post
January 28, 2021It was then that his legal battle began. The Israel Religious Action Center took up his case, and secured a stay of the expulsion order. For the next two-and-a-half years, foot-dragging by the Interior Ministry would delay his case being heard, though due to the intervention of the court he was permitted to remain in Israel pending a final resolution of his appeal.
Kibita’s lawyer, Nicole Maor, argues that the government’s case is fundamentally flawed. She references a document issued by the Population and Immigration Authority establishing the criteria for granting immigrant status on the basis of a conversion abroad. In it, a “recognized community” is described as one that is “long established, active, with a shared and acknowledged Jewish identity, that has a permanent framework for administration of the community and that is affiliated with one of the established streams of world Jewry and acknowledged as such by its authoritative institutions; and/or recognized by the Jewish Agency.” Previous rulings of the Supreme Court upheld these criteria, and, Maor notes, the Abayudaya fulfill all of them – the “and” as well as the “or.”
Maor cites additional inconsistencies in the state’s arguments. In addition to its refusal to acknowledge the Abayudaya as a recognized Jewish community, the government also contends that even if it were, Kibita’s conversion would not be valid, because it failed to meet acceptable standards. Acceptable to whom?
2021
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Haaretz
July 20, 2020The petitioners, the Reform and Conservative movements, responded that they are opposed to any further extensions, noting that the case has dragged on far too long. The movements are being represented in court by the Israel Religious Action Center – the advocacy arm of the Reform movement in the country.
2020
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Haaretz
December 29, 2019The petitioner is being represented by the Israel Religious Action Center, the advocacy arm of the Reform movement in Israel, and by Global Aliyah, an organization that provides financial and other assistance to individuals interested in exercising their right to immigrate to Israel.
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Haaretz
October 15, 2019Acting on behalf of the family, the Israel Religious Action Center — the advocacy arm of the Reform movement in the country — on Tuesday appealed the decision with the Jerusalem branch of the ministry. If the appeal is rejected, warned Nicole Maor, the lawyer handling the case, IRAC will challenge the ruling in court.
More than a month after they were sent back, the ministry notified Meyer that her application to have her daughters visit her had been officially rejected. About a month after that, once IRAC became involved in the case, the ministry reversed its decision and said the girls had permission to come visit their mother under the terms that had been originally requested. But by then, the older daughter’s summer vacation was already nearly over, and the Meyer couple decided to wait a year before ordering her another ticket. The younger daughter was given permission to come in February and spend 10 months with her mother.
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Haaretz
May 2, 2019Kibita and the Conservative-Masorti movement are receiving legal representation from the Israel Religious Action Center, the advocacy arm of the Reform movement in the country.
2019
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Haaretz
December 31, 2018But Nicole Maor, an attorney with the Israel Religious Action Center – a nonprofit that provides legal assistance to converts and immigrants – says Israeli law allows children of converts to join their immigrant parents even if they have not themselves converted.
“It is inconceivable that the Interior Ministry prevents the entry of minors to Israel to see their parents who are Israeli citizens, claiming that the formal procedures haven't been completed and citing suspicions that they would stay in Israel when they know, or should know, that these children are fully entitled to stay,” she said.
“This is especially true when the parents visited the ministry more than half a dozen times and told officials exactly when the children were expected to arrive in the country. The trauma caused to these children is irreversible and completely unconscionable,” Maor added.
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Yuba.net
September 14, 2018Yesterday, Thursday, September 13, 2018, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the Population and Immigration Authority must reexamine the petition for residency status in the case of a foreign citizen who was the victim of domestic abuse by her Israeli husband. The couple were married for 2.5 years and had a child together before their separation due to the abuse of the wife and their child (the wife has lived legally in Israel since 2005). The Population and Immigration Authority had previously turned down her request to remain in Israel and raise her child, an Israeli citizen. The committee’s reasoning included that the woman had no other family in Israel, and that it would be in the child’s best interests not to remain in the same country as the abusive husband. The woman was represented by Adv Nicole Maor, Director of the Israel Religious Action Center’s Legal Aid Center for Olim (LACO).
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Haaretz
June 13, 2018The Conservative-Masorti movement and Yosef are receiving legal representation from the Israel Religious Action Center – the advocacy arm of the Reform movement in the country. The petition will be filed against Interior Minister Arye Dery and Shlomo Mor-Yosef, director of the ministry's Population, Immigration and Border Authority.
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Haaretz
June 3, 2018The petition to the High Court will be submitted through the Israel Religious Action Center, which is the advocacy arm of the Reform movement in the country.
“The decision by the Interior Ministry contradicts all legal precedents, as well as the criteria that it itself drew up regarding recognition of conversions of recognized communities overseas,” said Nicole Maor, the IRAC attorney who will be handling the case.
“There is no doubt whatsoever that the Abayudaya are members of the world Conservative-Masorti movement and the Interior Ministry is, therefore, obliged to recognize conversions performed in its framework,” she said.