Israel is battling a rare wave of non-Jewish refugees from Ukraine

About 16,000 Ukrainian refugees have already arrived in Israel, but two-thirds of them have no Jewish roots. While most of the 3.7 million Ukrainians fleeing the war are moving to neighboring European countries, the floods have shocked Israel, which has a population of 9.3 million.

Some Israeli officials fear that an uncontrolled wave of refugees could undermine the country’s Jewish majority. Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics said in 2021 that 74% of Israel’s population identifies as Jewish, and 21% are Arab. The other 5% are largely non-Arab Christians, most of whom were or were born among the approximately one million immigrants from the former Soviet Union who immigrated to Israel during the 1990s.

On 8 March Israel’s Interior Minister Aylet Shek announced the first policy of capping non-Jewish refugees from Ukraine at 5,000, while allowing an additional 20,000 Ukrainians largely living in Israel without legal status before the war. allowed to remain during hostilities.

Five days later Ms. Sheik changed course after being condemned by centrist and left-wing members of her own government. According to polls, the issue has largely divided the country along political lines, with left-wing Israelis favoring a more open policy to absorb non-Jewish refugees. The revised policy puts the non-Jewish refugee quota at 5,000, but allows an uncapped number of Ukrainians to stay with family in Israel until hostilities end. Ukrainians also need to apply for approval from Israel before being allowed to board a plane to Tel Aviv.

Israel’s current quota for Ukrainians to enter the country and the requirement that they obtain prior approval while abroad effectively suspends a visa-waiver agreement that Israel has with Ukraine. The adjacent United Arab Emirates made a similar move in early March before quickly retreating.

On 23 March, Israeli officials said they were approaching Kota, with 4,000 non-Jewish Ukrainian refugees already here.

Ms Sheik has said her policy is to give priority to Ukrainians of Jewish origin who are eligible for citizenship.

“We have to remember that the state of Israel is the national homeland of the Jewish people,” Ms Sheik said. She has argued that, relative to the size of its population, Israel is expected to take in more Ukrainian refugees and naturalize them. Any other country that does not border Ukraine.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has criticized Israel’s refugee policy in a Zoom-hosted speech to Israeli lawmakers. “Why isn’t Israeli help, or even the entry permit, coming,” he said.

Mr. Zelensky, who is Jewish, compared Ukrainians fleeing the war to Jews who survived Nazi persecution during the Holocaust. That specific appeal attracted the displeasure of a largely Jewish audience, who found the comparison to be inaccurate and unnecessary.

Israel’s Supreme Court has given the government until Monday to revise the current policy before deciding whether the quota of Ukrainian refugees and the requirement to allow entry from abroad is legal, petitions the court of Ukraine’s embassy in Tel Aviv. supported by. Israeli officials have argued that the visa-waiver program is for tourism purposes, while those fleeing the war would be more likely to stay in the country.

Tomar Varsha, who filed the petition challenging the current refugee policy, said, “We have shown that the law concerns any visitor to Ukraine and for any purpose, not just tourism, and the Supreme Court indicated that in fact they would consider it as such.” look like that.”

Israel has sought to balance its close ties with the US and Europe with the diplomatic and security ties that have developed with Moscow in recent years.

Israel’s position is that it opposes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but can only provide humanitarian-military assistance to maintain its relations with Russia. Moscow has forces in Syria, where Israel has long been conducting air campaigns against Iranian-backed militants. Israel has a deconflicted line of communication with Russia to prevent the possibility of an unexpected conflict in the Syrian skies. Israel has set up a field hospital in Ukraine and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is one of a handful of state leaders to mediate between Kyiv and Moscow.

Ukrainian officials say some non-Jewish refugees were abused as they tried to enter the country, in contrast to the relatively easy process for refugees of Jewish origin.

25-year-old refugee Yulia Tomin, who fled her hometown of Ivano-Frankivsk with her two young children and her grandmother, is not Jewish, but has Israeli relatives. She said she slept on the floor at the airport from March 8-11 while trying to take care of her 1-month-old son and her 4-year-old daughter. He is transferred to a hotel and is slated for deportation before an immigration attorney takes up his case and wins.

Others were not as lucky. Two women were deported earlier this month at Ms Tomin’s hotel.

“I’m not scared here,” said Ms. Tomin. “I fear what will happen in Ukraine.”

Israel’s immigration authority has not responded for comment on Ms Tomin’s case.

In a parliamentary hearing, Israeli officials said they were surprised by the quick build-up of refugees at the airport when the war broke out in Ukraine. They have since opened facilities at the airport with food and child care and have begun considering refugee applications from abroad to stay in Israel to reduce deportation.

Since February 25, 289 Ukrainians out of more than 16,000 people have been denied entry into Israel.

Many Jewish refugees have had an easier time and their applications for citizenship are now being fast-tracked. 40-year-old psychiatrist Ilya Tregubov fled to Dnipro with his wife and teenage daughter after a rocket collapse. In Lviv, he met with officials from Israel’s semi-official Jewish Agency, which verified his Jewish heritage and helped him immigrate to Israel. Mr Tregubov said he and his family are now Israeli citizens, living with his cousin in central Israel and working on his Hebrew.

“It’s a feeling I’ve had all my life. If it gets really bad, I’ll move to Israel. As a Jew, that thought is deep in your consciousness. But you don’t really imagine that like that.” Will happen,” he said.

Israeli officials say they expect between 50,000 and 100,000 Jews to immigrate from countries in the former Soviet Union this year, through a law that allows those with at least one Jewish grandparent to obtain citizenship. gives. Israeli officials also said that about 2,000 Russians have already arrived in Israel since the war began and thousands have submitted inquiries regarding immigration.

In the seven decades since its founding, Israel has dealt almost exclusively with waves of Jewish immigration, but this time it was forced to bring together an ad-hoc policy for non-Jewish refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, Johann Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based think tank.

Soviet immigrants in the early 1990s were the largest group of non-Jews that Israel has ever accepted, and it also took in non-Jewish refugees from Vietnam in the late 1970s. It has generally refused refugees from Syria and other recent conflicts, and has largely not allowed Palestinian refugees from Israel’s founding war to return.

“Israel didn’t really deal with great pressure from non-Jews to immigrate to Israel, and so, never really developed a coherent policy,” he said.

Some Ukrainian refugees are preparing to immigrate to Israel despite their limited status.

Alla Misiyuk and her daughter are among about a dozen non-Jewish families being brought to Israel with the help of Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum as their families saved Jewish lives during World War II.

On Monday, Ms Misiuk said she found her young daughter attending a new school. Yet Mrs. Misiuk still does not know whether she and her daughter will be allowed to live in Israel permanently.

“My house is devastated. There’s no place to go back,” she said.