Lod Court Orders Re-evaluation of Citizenship for Potential IDF Recruit
A Lod court ordered the Population and Immigration Authority to re-examine a citizenship request for a great-grandson of a Jewish person wishing to enlist in the IDF, rejecting retroactive visa cancellations.
The Administrative Affairs Court in Lod recently ordered the Population and Immigration Authority to re-evaluate the citizenship application of a young man, a great-grandson of a Jewish person, who immigrated to Israel with his parents. Judge Keren Azulay ruled that given the young man's desire to enlist in the IDF, a decision must be made as soon as possible.
The young man's father, a native of Russia and the grandson of a Jewish person, immigrated to Israel in October 2019 under the Law of Return along with his wife and son, who was then 12. The son, who was not automatically entitled to immigrant status as a great-grandson of a Jewish person, received a temporary resident visa (A/5) for one year. About three weeks later, the family returned to Russia.
Court Proceedings and Visa Dispute
The father returned to Israel in March 2021, while the mother and son returned in July of that year. Although the son's original visa had already expired, border control at Ben Gurion Airport permitted his entry with an A/5 visa. Since then, the family has lived in Israel, and the son has studied here. In January 2022, the father requested to renew the license, but it took nearly a year for his request to be denied on the grounds that it was not proven that the family's center of life was in Israel. Subsequently, an appeal he filed was accepted, and the visa was renewed.
In January 2025, the father applied to grant his son Israeli citizenship. The Population Authority rejected it, arguing that the required condition of residing in Israel as a resident for three out of the five years preceding the application was not met. The father petitioned the court, arguing, among other things, that since July 2021 his son's center of life has been in Israel, and that delays caused by the authority's conduct should not be held against him.
Judge's Ruling and Future Steps
The Population Authority claimed in response that the visa issued to the young man at border control in 2021 was issued by mistake, as the previous visa had already expired. Judge Azulay found difficulty with the authority's position, noting that it was not clarified what the "error" was, when it was discovered, and why it was never communicated to the father or son in real time.
The court determined that ignoring this period within the framework of the citizenship application practically means retroactively revoking the visa and applying the correction retrospectively, harming the principle of reliance.
Accordingly, the court ordered the authority to take into account the period between July 2021 and December 2022, enabling the young man to meet the three-year residency requirement, and returned the citizenship application to the authority for a new decision. The authority was ordered to pay 4,000 shekels in legal costs.
