Israel now requires FBI checks of would-be immigrants

Since Israel’s inception, thousands of Jews from around the world have immigrated each year in a process known as aliya. Unfortunately, a small subset of these immigrants have a criminal history, yet they often find it all too easy to obtain Israeli citizenship.

That is why, when a colleague pointed out to this reporter that the website of Nefesh B’Nefesh, a nonprofit organization that helps North American Jews immigrate to Israel, had been updated to indicate that immigrants from North America now had to undergo a criminal background check, The Times of Israel tried to find out what lay behind the new requirement. Was the government finally getting serious about the problem of criminals obtaining Israeli citizenship?

Possibly.

But while the Interior Ministry has been requiring FBI background checks, there are those who oppose this rule, saying it slows down and discourages aliya. Meanwhile, there appears to be no dent in the number of alleged criminals or convicted criminals obtaining Israeli citizenship.

A new requirement?

“The Israeli Ministry of the Interior (Misrad Hapnim) has recently decided a criminal background check is required for all aliya applicants,” the Nefesh B’Nefesh website said in a post dated May 5. The website went on to explain that this new requirement involved sending fingerprints to the FBI and obtaining a document called an apostille, an internationally valid certification of authenticity.

The Times of Israel called Nefesh B’Nefesh’s spokeswoman, Yael Katsman, to ask about the new requirements. Katsman said that the issue was very technical and complicated, and suggested contacting the Jewish Agency, the organization charged with vetting new immigrants to Israel who are from anywhere in the world besides the former Soviet Union. (A third organization, Nativ, vets immigrants from the former Soviet Union. The Interior Ministry itself vets those would-be immigrants who arrive in Israel as tourists and seek to change their status while here. The Interior Ministry also has the authority to override decisions made by any of the other three organizations.)

A spokeswoman for the Jewish Agency confirmed that a new requirement had come into effect as of May 1.

“The Jewish Agency facilitates aliya within the guidelines of the Ministry of Interior, which as of May 1st requires a background check for all aliya candidates,” she wrote. “This measure is necessary to ensure that no one applying for aliya is seeking to escape justice.”

The Jewish Agency spokeswoman suggested contacting the Interior Ministry for further details about the rule change.

But when The Times of Israel contacted Population and Immigration Authority spokeswoman Sabine Hadad, she indicated that the “new requirement” wasn’t new at all. “There has been no change of requirements!” she wrote in a text message. “Why are you asking the Jewish Agency about what we do? Ask us.”

Eleven years of background checks

Hadad told The Times of Israel that until 2009 it had been enough for new immigrants to Israel to sign a declaration saying they had no criminal past. The Israeli government took their word for it. But then, in October 2009, a horrifying murder occurred that shocked the entire country.

Damian Karlik, an immigrant from Russia, murdered his former employer Dmitry Oshrenko as well as his employer’s wife, two small children and parents at their home in Rishon Lezion.

“Karlik was from Russia,” Hadad said. “He had made aliya with his girlfriend. He signed the declaration that he was not a criminal but in fact he had been charged with armed robbery in Russia; we just didn’t know it.”

Since the Oshrenko murders in 2009, said Hadad, all new immigrants to Israel are required to produce a police-issued background check from their country of origin. The document has to be apostilled, or officially certified, to prevent forgeries, she said.

So why, ToI asked Hadad, did Nefesh B’Nefesh claim the requirement was new?

“Until recently, we had some kind of unclear agreement with Nefesh B’Nefesh that if someone makes aliya through them, we would let them carry out the criminal [background] check. But then there was a decision to stop that, and [make it so] that everyone, including immigrants from North America, must produce a background check.”

Hadad refused to say why the government had taken the responsibility for criminal checks away from Nefesh B’Nefesh. She did hint, however, that the incident had caused tension between Nefesh B’Nefesh and the Interior Ministry.

“In May, Nefesh B’Nefesh wrote on their website that the Interior Ministry had changed the rules. We got very annoyed because it’s not true, we’ve always required background checks. They even apologized to us over this.”

Supporters of Nefesh B’Nefesh fire back in the Knesset

On August 4, Likud MK Ariel Kallner sent an official query letter to the interior minister entitled “A Bureaucratic Procedure for Olim.”

“Nefesh B’Nefesh published updated information on their website regarding the Interior Ministry’s requirements for an FBI criminal background check and apostille certifying that the document is authentic,” he wrote.

“Such a check costs hundreds of dollars, beyond the fact that it piles bureaucracy on the new immigrant. I would like to ask: 1) How does your ministry plan to address this? 2) Does this rule only apply to immigrants from the United States and Canada and if so, why?”

A week later, the Knesset Immigration and Absorption Committee convened to discuss the issue at the behest of Nefesh B’Nefesh. The committee’s then chairman MK David Bitan (Likud) suggested that the Interior Ministry forgo the apostille certification requirement for the background check for several months due to the coronavirus crisis.

“The waiting period for an apostille is very long and is preventing people from immigrating to Israel,” Bitan said.

 Zev Gershinsky, director of government advocacy for Nefesh B’Nefesh, told the hearing that the coronavirus had caused a huge spike in the number of Americans interested in immigrating to Israel but that bureaucratic delays, including the apostille requirement, were slowing their arrival.

“Did any North Americans forge the background checks?” asked Bitan. “Out of 100,000 immigrants, were there any forgeries?” he pressed.

“Not that I recall lately,” replied Shai Felber, head of the Jewish Agency’s Immigration and Absorption unit.

“So then I don’t understand what the Population Authority wants,” said Bitan.

(In January, Israel’s state prosecutor announced that it intended to indict Bitan, pending a hearing, on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, in nine alleged instances in which he allegedly accepted bribes in exchange for using his government position to promote the interests of various businesspeople. Bitan’s hearing [Hebrew link] took place earlier this month. He denies all the allegations.)

Yoel Lipovetsky, a representative of the Immigration and Population Authority, which is part of the Interior Ministry, spoke to the Knesset session via Zoom, and fired back at critics.

“If we’re talking about the background check, I, unlike Nefesh B’Nefesh, do not see it as an obstacle. First and foremost we are talking about the public welfare. No one wants pedophiles to come into Israel, and unfortunately this has happened. We don’t want to give entry to criminals, rapists or murderers. We can close our eyes and say it’s not important, but I think the public welfare is the most important thing there is in this country.”

A brief history of criminals who made aliya

One of the most notorious criminals to ever attempt to make aliya was American mobster Meyer Lansky, who lived in Israel for two years from 1970 to 1972 but left after then-prime minister Golda Meir ultimately refused to grant him citizenship.

But since then, Israel’s track record when it comes to giving citizenship to alleged and convicted criminals has been less than exemplary. Although it is impossible to know how many criminals the government successfully kept out over the years, some of its lapses are notable.

In 1972, the same year that Lansky left, Shmuel Flatto-Sharon, who was wanted in France for allegedly embezzling $60 million, moved to Israel. He was elected to the Knesset in 1977 despite the fact that France had asked for his extradition. Flatto-Sharon’s political adviser at the time was Shabtay Kalmanovich, a Russian-Israeli man who would in 1988 be exposed and convicted as a Soviet spy.

A 1996 FBI report about the Semion Mogilevich crime organization claimed that the same Kalmanovich had used his connections in the Israeli government to obtain Israeli passports for leading members of the Solntsevskaya Russian organized crime group.

At a December 11, 1996, hearing of the Knesset State Control Committee, the then-head of intelligence in the Israeli police, Hezi Leder, told the Knesset that more than 30 senior Russian organized crime figures had recently illegally been granted Israeli citizenship by the Interior Ministry, through an alleged accomplice who worked in the ministry.

At the same Knesset hearing, Labor MK Moshe Shahal, who had been minister of police under Yitzhak Rabin, told the Knesset that members of Russian law enforcement had warned him that Russian organized crime groups were actively trying to gain entry into Israel and infiltrate Israeli institutions.