Court Orders Interior Ministry to Reconsider Citizenship for Grandson of Jew Eager to Enlist

A court in Lod has ordered the Population and Immigration Authority to re-examine a citizenship application for a young man, the great-grandson of a Jewish person, who immigrated to Israel with his parents. Judge Keren Azulai ruled that given the young man's desire to enlist in the IDF, the decision must be made as soon as possible. The young man's father, born in Russia and a grandson of a Jewish person, immigrated to Israel in October 2019 under the Law of Return with his wife and son, who was then 12 years old. The son, not automatically eligible for immigrant status as a great-grandson of a Jewish person, received a temporary resident permit (type A/5) for one year. About three weeks later, the family returned to Russia. The father returned to Israel in March 2021, while the mother and son returned in July of the same year. The family has since resided in Israel, and the son has studied there. In January 2022, the father applied to renew the permit, but after nearly a year, his request was denied, with the claim that the family's center of life in Israel had not been proven. An appeal was later accepted, and the permit was renewed. In January 2025, the father applied for his son to be granted Israeli citizenship. The Population Authority rejected this, arguing that the required condition of residing in Israel as a resident for three out of the five years preceding the application had not been met. The father petitioned the court, arguing that his son's center of life had been in Israel since July 2021 and that delays caused by the authority's conduct should not be held against him. The Population Authority contended that the visa given to the young man at border control in 2021 was issued in error, as the previous visa had already expired. According to their argument, the young man only held a valid A/5 visa from April 2023, which would count towards the required period for citizenship. However, Judge Azulai found the authority's position problematic. She noted that it was unclear what the 'mistake' was, when it was discovered, and why neither the father nor the son were informed at the time that the visa was issued erroneously. The visa was not canceled until December 2022. The court determined that disregarding this period in the citizenship application effectively meant retroactively canceling the visa and applying the amendment retroactively. The judge stated that no convincing reason was presented to ignore the period during which the young man held the visa, which, from his perspective, was legally granted. Therefore, the court ruled that the authority's error's consequences should not fall on the applicant who relied on it, causing significant damage to his reliance interest. Consequently, the court ordered that the period between July 2021 and December 2022 be considered, allowing the young man to meet the three-year residency requirement, and returned the citizenship application to the authority for reconsideration. The authority was ordered to pay 4,000 shekels in expenses.