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THIS WEEK IN ISRAEL
New approach: Interior Minster decided to ease restrictions Interior Minister Avraham Poraz has taken a new approach to the status of non-Jews who wish to live in Israel. Each year it will be possible for several hundred foreigners - workers or their children -- to obtain Israeli citizenship. This will, according to Poraz, prevent an inundation of foreigners, while making it possible to grant some of them Israeli citizenship on a humanitarian basis subject to an individual examination of each case. As part of the easing of restrictions, illegal residents who were injured in terror attacks will be able to receive work and residency permits from the Interior Ministry. Additional relief will be provided to foreigners who married Israeli citizens in civil marriages abroad. Heretofore they were required to remain abroad for two months, separated from their spouses, until their entrance permits to Israel were approved, upon completion of a complicated process. Under the new regulations, monetary guarantees will be required in order for the spouse to enter Israel, and the couple will be able to return to Israel within a short time. A new regulation that has already taken effect allows foreign spouses of Israelis who were widowed before acquiring citizenship to continue the process and to become citizens. Until now, they were required to leave Israel on the grounds that the reason for their becoming citizens (marriage to an Israeli) is no longer valid. An additional change: temporary residency will be given to pregnant women married to Israelis, even if they are only in the initial stage of acquiring citizenship, to enable them to obtain medical services. Furthermore, applicants for citizenship, who were previously required to present a police clearance certification at the end of the process as a condition for obtaining citizenship - which delayed the process even further - will now submit the police clearance at the beginning. In addition, a residency permit valid for several years will be given to foreign experts in the fields of high tech, science, and art - "whoever makes a unique contribution in his work to the State of Israel" according to the Interior Minister (Ha'aretz).
The initiative of a young student from Jerusalem, Matan Dahan, 23, has resulted in a settlement project: a new village, all of whose residents are students at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva. The village will be established this year some 50 kilometers south of Beersheva, in an area under the jurisdiction of the Ramat Hanegev regional council. In return for contributing to the Beersheva community, the students will receive full scholarships. This week, representatives of the Jewish Agency and the Knesset visited the settlement site together with the chairman of the regional council, Shmuel Ripman. World Jewry including the Rashi Foundation from France, have already shown interest in this special project and are ready to contribute to help it succeed.
As part of ties between community institutions in Tel Aviv-Jaffa and world Jewish communities, the Beit Danny youth band from the Hatikva neighborhood visited Moscow; visit reciprocated by youth from Moscow As part of the effort to cultivate relations with world Jewry, 10 young girls who are active in the community center in Jaffa have left on a visit to the Jewish community center in Sofia, capital of Bulgaria, as the guests of the community. They were accompanied by the directors of the center. Sofia is twinned with Tel Aviv-Jaffa. During their trip, the girls will visit Jewish community institutions in Sofia, including the synagogue, the Jewish school, and the Jewish senior citizens home. They will also meet with participants in the BBYO European B'nai Brith youth movement and will serve as counselors in spring camps, as well as visiting Jewish communities in other Bulgarian cities. This trip is taking place in the context of ties that exist between various community centers in Tel Aviv and Jewish communities abroad. One of these relationships -- between Beit Danny in the Hatikva neighborhood and the Jewish community of Moscow -- was developed through the Jewish Agency: a youth band visited Moscow, and the visit was reciprocated by a group of youth from Moscow. Additional ties are now being developed between the Barbour House in Tel Aviv and the Jewish center in Budapest and between the Neve Eliezer community center and the Jewish center in Rome.
The IDF will grant a special certificate of commendation to the family of the late Colonel Ilan Ramon, who was killed in the break-up of the space shuttle Columbia. The award will be given by Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Moshe Ya'alon, at a meeting with the family of Israel's first astronaut. The IDF reports that the commendation will be given for "Ramon's excellence in his service as a pilot and a commander. . . for the activities that he performed with professionalism, modesty, and courage, while serving as a personal model and demonstrating exemplary leadership. Colonel Ramon represented the State of Israel and the IDF, while demonstrating boundless love and loyalty to his heritage and his people. In his life and in his death Ilan served as a representative and ambassador of the people in Israel and the Diaspora. He will be remembered as an officer, an exemplary person, a trailblazer and a loyal son of his country."
Security forces have thwarted a sophisticated scheme by Palestinian security prisoners to smuggle instructions from jail for terror purposes. Based on intelligence information, 170 jail staff members raided prison cells in the Shikma prison, which houses 640 prisoners, where they found a ditch that had been dug under one of the sinks. In the ditch they discovered a pile of "pills" - pages of instructions that were folded into small "pills" wrapped in plastic. It is believed that the prisoners planned to conceal these "pills" in their mouth while being transferred from one prison to another or to pass them on during family visits. The "pills" weren't the only thing found in the raids - among other things, various rifle parts and cellphones were also discovered.
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