Ignoring a court ruling: Ministry of Interior rejects granddaughter of Righteous Among the Nations
Ellen Monique Chites, a 56-year-old Dutch woman who stayed in Israel to help since the outbreak of the war, has been refused residency for two years. The Population Authority claims that eligibility applies only to minors, but ignores a recent ruling that determined otherwise. In an interview with Walla, she says: 'The most important thing for me is to do the right thing.'
Is the Ministry of Interior ignoring, as a matter of policy, the procedure and court rulings that determine that grandchildren of Righteous Among the Nations who saved Jews during the Holocaust are entitled to residency in Israel?
The answer to this is apparently positive. At least that is what emerges from the Sisyphean struggle of Ellen Monique Chites, a 56-year-old Christian Dutch citizen, whom the Population and Immigration Authority — a unit of the Ministry of Interior — has been refusing for two years to regulate her status. Meanwhile, she has been visiting Israel for years and even stayed for an extended period after the October 7 attack to assist Israelis affected by the war. Currently, she lives in Haifa and is learning Hebrew.
Chites is the granddaughter of Frederik Jan Kerkhof and the great-granddaughter of Jan Kerkhof and Klartje Kerkhof-van de Wal, who were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations for risking their lives to save Jews in occupied Netherlands. The Kerkhof family protected two Jewish brothers, hiding them in their attic and subsequently assisting them in other locations.
In an interview with Walla, she describes her connection to Israel as a love story built gradually. Only after visiting Yad Vashem in 2018, where she discovered the full documentation of her ancestors' heroism, did the family history become deeply significant to her. Since then, she has visited the country about ten times, feeling a "magnetic force" pulling her to return.
On October 7, 2023, she was in Jerusalem. Instead of fleeing, she felt a desire to stay and help. Although she had to return to the Netherlands for work, she continued to act for the benefit of Israel, helping dozens of Dutch volunteers find opportunities to support the country. Eventually, she resigned from her position in the healthcare system and returned to Israel to volunteer with the "One Family" organization and assist the elderly.
"Sometimes you just have to do the right thing, and on October 7 I felt that I had to stay here because it was the right thing to do," she said. "I didn't know what the meaning and consequences would be. But then people told me that I could really stay and it felt so right to continue the path of my grandfather. That is what I will do and I will not give up."
In July 2024, Chites submitted a request to regulate her status based on the procedure for descendants of Righteous Among the Nations. However, in November, the request was rejected on the grounds that she is not a minor. The Authority cited an update to the procedure from May 2022, which limits eligibility to minor grandchildren, and informed her that she was required to leave Israel by January 2, 2025.
Attorney Yehoshua Pex of the law firm Decker, Pex, Levi, representing Chites, filed an appeal, arguing that the Ministry of Interior's position is formalistic and empties the procedure of its purpose. "Righteous Among the Nations acted during the Holocaust. The requirement that their grandchildren be minors is almost impossible to fulfill," he emphasized.
Despite the initial rejection, a surprising turn occurred in January 2026: the District Court ruled in a similar case that the status regulation procedure should apply to children and grandchildren of Righteous Among the Nations regardless of their age. Following this, attorney Pex contacted the Authority with a renewed request, but the Ministry of Interior still refuses to provide a substantive response.
"Ellen Monique Chites is not asking for preferential treatment; she is asking that her request be examined according to the procedure intended for descendants of Righteous Among the Nations," attorney Pex stated. As of last year, only about 165 people had submitted requests based on this law, and only 61 had completed the process.
The Population and Immigration Authority responded to Walla: "This is a unique procedure. Every request is examined according to its unique circumstances, and comparison is irrelevant. The applicant previously submitted a request, and since she did not meet the requirements, she was refused. This refusal was anchored in a court ruling. Now she has submitted another request, which will be examined in accordance with the procedure."
