An appeals court in Beersheba has asked the government to reconsider its order to deport dozens of members of Dimona’s Hebrew Israeli community.
In Thursday’s ruling and reported Friday by Haaretz daily, the judge wrote to Acting Interior Minister Michael Malkily that the state had repeatedly assured members of the community that their requests for citizenship would be considered favorably .
“Even if I assume that members of the community were never given a government promise that the status of all its members would be settled, the numerous meetings recorded in the transcripts, as well as by officials Multiple statements over the years, that the case of the Hebrew community would be investigated in a sympathetic manner, certainly could be expected from someone in the community to do so,” wrote Judge Michael Zilberschmidt.
Zilberschmidt also stated that the current minister was not bound by the deportation decision of his predecessor, Alet Schaked, who ordered the deportation.
Ruling representatives of the community told Haaretz that they were disappointed that the judge had returned the case to the Interior Ministry and not rescinded the deportation order.
About 50 members of Dimona’s Hebrew Israelite community in southern Israel, about 3,000 strong, were told in 2021 that they must leave the country due to their lack of legal status in Israel, or risk forced deportation by immigration police.
Members of the Hebrew Israeli community of Dimona on the occasion of the Shavuot festival in the southern Israeli city of Dimona on May 26, 2013. (Jonathan Sindel/Flash90/File)
In response to appeals to grant permission to remain, the Population and Immigration Authority of the Ministry of the Interior wrote to each family that neither residence in Israel for a long period nor work in the country were sufficient grounds for a change of status.
Many of those being deported were born in Israel or have children who served in the IDF.
The community, which believes it is descended from an ancient Israelite tribe, began immigrating to Israel in 1969, after the late Ben Carter, a Chicago steelworker who renamed himself Ben Ammi Ben Israel and claimed to be God’s representative on earth. Claimed.
According to its website, the community, which allows polygamy, does not subscribe to any religion “because religions only divide men.” However, it observes the Sabbath and Jewish holidays as described in the Torah, circumcises its male children eight days after birth, and requires women to follow Biblical laws of purification.
It is not recognized as Jewish by the Israeli religious authorities.
Many community members were granted permanent residency in 2003. Since 2004, its youth have been serving in the Israel Defense Forces. People who have completed military service are eligible to apply for citizenship, and most requests are approved.
In 2014, then-Minister of the Interior Gideon Saar announced that permanent residents could obtain citizenship if they renounced their US nationality. (Those who had performed military service were eligible to apply for citizenship without having to give up a US passport, if they had one in their possession.)
