FSU Emigration to Germany - 12.19.2004
Germany to limit immigration of FSU Jews
News
Jan. 10: Germany Will Consult Community Leaders
Jerusalem Post
Washington Post
Forward
JTA
JTA: Russian Rabbi Back Law
German official promises to consult with community on immigration law
By Toby Axelrod
BERLIN (JTA) Germany is considering changes to its controversial new immigration law concerning Jews from the former Soviet Union, but Jewish leaders will be consulted over any move, the country's interior minister said.
Otto Schily's statement Friday was designed to head off criticism of the new law, which took effect Jan. 1, from the Central Council of Jews in Germany. Schily said talks with the Central Council will continue on the law, which is expected to restrict Jewish immigration to Germany from the former Soviet Union.
Schily also accused unnamed individuals of trying to sow ill will between the ministry and the Central Council, which has questioned aspects of the new law.
The Central Council said it first learned details of the new law on Dec. 13. The law, presented as a response to Germany's struggling economy, restricts immigration to economically secure people under age 45 with a basic knowledge of German.
In addition, Jewish applicants from the former Soviet Union must obtain a certificate from a synagogue in Germany affirming that they would be accepted into the community.
The rules are not yet set in stone, Schily said. He promised that the Central Council, which represents some 105,000 Jews in Germany, would be included in talks on any changes.
The Conference of Interior Ministers of German states is continuing to discuss the matter, which it must decide. The German Parliament's committee for internal affairs also will discuss the issue Jan. 19.
On Dec. 20, the council's president, Paul Spiegel, called aspects of the law "completely unacceptable." He expressed concern for 27,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union who have been waiting, some more than six years, for their applications to be processed.
The Interior Ministry enacted a temporary regulation Dec. 29 granting entry to those who had received official invitations by Jan. 1 under the former "contingency refugee" regulations for ex-Soviet Jews.
Last Friday, the Interior Minister announced that new regulations would be developed for applicants still waiting for an answer, or those who wish to apply.
The "goal is to strengthen and ease their integration" in Jewish communities and in Germany, Schily said, adding that he expected the cooperative relationship with the Central Council to continue despite the need to solve difficult problems.
Meanwhile, Israel's ambassador to Germany, Shimon Stein, said he had no problem with an immigration law that discouraged Jews in the former Soviet Union from coming to Germany. He told the German newspaper Freies Wort that the new rules were in keeping with the Israeli position, according to which there are no Jewish refugees since all Jews have a homeland in Israel.
Israel has been embarrassed that in recent years more former Soviet Jews have moved to Germany than to Israel, which offers them less in welfare benefits. But Stein said he respected the decision of some Jews to move to Germany.
Jerusalem Post
Germany to limit immigration of FSU Jews
By Hilary Leila Krieger
Jewish Agency officials hailed as a positive first step media reports Saturday that Germany will stop offering unlimited immigration and generous social benefits to Jews from the former Soviet Union.
According to the German media, starting in January 2006 only FSU Jews who are under the age of 45 and familiar with the German language will be eligible to immigrate.
The reports said the move comes in response to the fact that more FSU Jews were going to Germany than Israel, and that they imposed a heavy economic burden on the Jewish community, since many are dependent on welfare. Under the new policy, those who immigrate will not be eligible for social aid.
This year, for the first time, twice as many FSU Jews – or 20,000 people – chose to move to Germany over Israel, The Jerusalem Post reported earlier this month.
Germany's policy has infuriated the Israeli government.
Six months ago, Jewish Agency Chairman Sallai Meridor rebuked Germany for "enticing" these Jews to come "under refugee status, despite the fact that the State of Israel has already existed for 56 years" – meaning Jews have a homeland and therefore should not be considered refugees.
Since then, the Jewish Agency has appointed Israel's former ambassador to Germany, Benjamin Navon, as a special emissary to push the German government to change its policy.
Germany had a dwindling population of 27,000 Jews at the end of the 1980s before it began offering refugee status and absorption benefits far greater than those offered by Israel. Nearly 200,000 ex-Soviet Jews have since moved there.
Agency officials credited the efforts of Navon and others for Germany's policy shift.
"The Jewish Agency views this news as a positive development, though we are waiting for official documentation" from the German government, Jewish Agency spokesman Michael Jankelowitz said.
Jankelowitz noted that the major "bone of contention" has been the refugee status extended to the immigrants and noted that it is still unclear whether that status is being revoked.
Still, he said, "it's a step in the right direction," and added that the new regulations should increase the number of FSU Jews opting to relocate in Israel.
According to Jewish Agency representatives in Germany, the new policy was leaked ahead of any official government announcement, which is expected in the coming days.
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Washington Post
Open Door to Germany Shuts for Ex-Soviet Jews
WORLD IN BRIEF
BERLIN -- Germany is to stop offering unlimited immigration to Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe beginning Jan. 1, 2006, ending a policy it launched with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, German newspapers reported on Saturday.
Germany began offering Jews from the former Soviet bloc the right to settle in the country in 1991 to help rebuild its own Jewish communities, devastated by the country's Nazi regime. Some 190,000 Jews had taken up the offer by the end of 2003.
The policy has been reassessed because the number of ex-Soviet Jews coming to Germany has been higher in recent years than the number going to Israel, the newspapers said.
The Berliner Zeitung newspaper reported that about 9,400 ex-Soviet Jews were expected to come to Germany this year, exceeding the number settling in Israel by more than 1,000 for the first time.
The newspaper also said Berlin's Jewish community was under financial pressure because more than three-quarters of Jewish immigrants were reliant on welfare payments.
Germany's Interior Ministry was not immediately available for comment.
Forward
Germany Is Moving To End Mass Immigration of Jews From Russia
By NATHANIEL POPPER
The mass migration of Jews from the former Soviet Union to Germany likely will come to a swift end with the introduction of a new law drawn up by Germany's 16-state governments.
German authorities presented the new restrictions on Jewish immigration to Germany's two national Jewish organizations last week. As put forth, the restrictions effectively will end the wave of migration that has brought almost 200,000 Jews and their relatives to Germany from the former Soviet Union, causing a Jewish renaissance in the most unlikely of places.
The law drew praise from Israeli authorities, who have long been uncomfortable with Jewish immigration to Germany, especially since it began topping immigration to Israel in the last few years. Michael Jankelowitz, a spokesman for the Jewish Agency for Israel, a quasi-government agency responsible for immigration to Israel, said the changes were "positive." Jankelowitz said that his organization aggressively had lobbied the German government for the new law.
But the new restrictions provoked concern in German and Russian circles. "This means the death of our immigration," said Larissa Sysoeva, European director of the World Congress of Russian-speaking Jews.
The law has created confusion among German Jewish communal leaders, who were informed of the changes only on December 13 and soon will be responsible for administering parts of the new law. In particular, communal officials are scrambling to understand the consequences of a clause requiring that all new Jewish immigrants to Germany be certified as Jewish by one of the country's two national Jewish organizations.
Even the representative of the Jewish Agency stationed in Germany, Anat Kagan, seemed to echo the ambivalent response that has greeted the new laws.
"I believe it will help Israel to get more immigrants in the next years," Kagan said. "If I look at the side of the Jews, though, I must admit it's not a very pleasant set of restrictions."
While the law has not been released in its final form, the German interior ministry confirmed that the interior ministers of Germany's 16 states had drawn up regulations on Jewish immigration as part of a broader immigration law that the German parliament passed in July.
Until now, anyone from the former Soviet Union who has one Jewish parent has been allowed to come to Germany, along with any immediate family. Now the Jewish immigrants will be allowed only if they are under 45, able to speak German and require no social welfare. Some sort of Jewish certification will be necessary also, but that has not been clearly defined.
This set of restrictions would have kept out almost all the immigrants who came. In Berlin, for example, almost 80% of the Jewish immigrants, most of whom are elderly, live on social help.
Paul Spiegel, the president of the official body representing Jews in Germany, the Central Council for Jews in Germany, said in a statement that the new rules are "worthy of discussion in a few areas, and in others fully unacceptable."
The broader German immigration law will come into effect January 1, 2005, and it appears that from this point forward, any new Jewish applicants will come under the new regulations. One controversial section of the new rules requires that even immigrants who have applied, but not been approved, start the application process over again. The Central Council says this includes 27,000 applicants, some of whom have been waiting up to five years. Another 27,000 who already have been approved will be allowed to come.
The Central Council and the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany — the other national organization representing German Jews — are both scrambling to determine the ramifications for their organizations. A politician from the Green Party called on Monday for an open debate in parliament about the rules, but a spokesperson for the German Interior Ministry said on Wednesday that "no formal participation for the parliament is foreseen," and indicated that the final document would emerge soon.
Notwithstanding the complaints, officials at the Central Council and the Union for Progressive Jews are not entirely opposed to the idea of limiting Jewish immigration to Germany. The newcomers, with their strong reliance on social welfare, have been a heavy financial burden for a community of Jews that only numbered 30,000 at the end of the 1980s. A rabbi for the Union for Progressive Jews, Walter Homolka, told the Berliner Zeitung that given the "economic difficulties," the new rules are "justifiable."
Spiegel has complained in the past that too many of the immigrants who have been allowed in are not actually Jewish. Only about half the immigrants who have come are registered as Jews with the Central Council. In his statement, Spiegel said, "We recognize the essential need for new regulations, but not with such methods."
Until now, refugees have come under an administrative act that Germany inherited from the East German government in 1991, which allowed Jews into Germany as "contingent refugees."
The use of the term "refugee" has particularly rankled Israeli authorities, who believe that the existence of a Jewish state means that there can be no such thing as a Jewish refugee. The issue has become particularly heated in the last three years, when more Russian Jews have chosen Germany over Israel. In 2003, 15,442 chose Germany while 12,383 immigrated to Israel.
A year ago, the Jewish Agency appointed a former ambassador to Germany, Benjamin Navon, to lobby the German government for a change in the rules.
The immigration program has long been one of the most delicate issues between Israel and Germany, said David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, the only American Jewish organization with an office in Berlin.
Harris, who said he thinks the new law is "reasonable," remembers that in discussions with then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the leader said: "If I do admit Jews to Germany, Israel accuses me of undermining Israeli national security. If I don't admit them, I'm accused of being a German antisemite."
Controversy has also arisen over the German government's policy of spreading the newcomers out in small communities across Germany. This was done to distribute the economic burden of the immigrants, but it also has taken them away from the infrastructure that might ease their absorption into both Jewish and German society.
Jankelowitz said that with the German program, Jewish immigrants "assimilate into general society much more quickly than even if they remain in the Soviet Union. It's a no-win situation not only for Israel, but also for the Jewish people."
But for Sysoeva, the immigrants who came to Germany were seeking services from Germany's welfare state that are not available in Israel.
"We get good help," Sysoeva said, "and now the Jewish Agency will destroy all that."
To protest the new law, Sysoeva is planning marches in Germany with Jews wearing yellow stars.
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German Jews: Immigration law may end community's rapid growth
By Toby Axelrod
BERLIN (JTA) -- German Jewish leaders are protesting a pending immigration law that they say leaves 27,000 Jewish applicants in the lurch.
According to documents obtained by JTA, the new law, expected to take effect Jan. 1, will make it much more difficult to immigrate to Germany. It also will mean that 27,000 Jewish applicants who have been waiting for permission to immigrate -- some for more than six years -- would have to start the process again under the new rules.
That's unfair, say representatives of Germany's Jewish population. Writing Wednesday to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Stephan Kramer, called the situation "completely unacceptable" and urged the ministry to "design an appropriate temporary arrangement" for those caught in the middle.
"There is no question that Germany will go on letting Jews from the former Soviet Union emigrate," Kramer told JTA. "This is not going to be taken back."
He added, "But we made it clear that we could not accept the way they treated this issue."
The Jewish Cultural Association of Berlin, a private organization with roots in former East Germany, also expressed dismay in a statement Wednesday.
The lack of a loophole for applicants who have been waiting "sheds a fatal light on the plan," the statement said.
However, the Union for Progressive Jews in Germany, as the Reform movement is known here, issued a statement Thursday calling the new regulations "justifiable," expressing gratitude that the union was consulted, that applicants can approach Progressive congregations to get immigration certificates, and that immigrants would continue to be accepted on the basis of Jewish "nationality" rather than solely on the basis of halacha, which recognizes only matrilineal descent.
Until now, Germany has not had a general immigration law, but has had special regulations permitting the repatriation of people of German origin and the immigration of Jews. The liberal regulation allowed Germany's Jewish population to triple to more than 105,000 with the arrival of tens of thousands of former Soviet Jews since 1989.
The new law, which is expected to be announced Dec. 30, imposes strict new requirements.
All those with permission already in their hands would have a year to act on it. But new applicants would have to prove financial independence, demonstrate basic fluency in German and receive a certificate from one of Germany's approximately 85 Jewish congregations stating that the applicant would be accepted as a member.
Previously, Germany said yes to Jewish applicants rather indiscriminately, essentially placing them on the Jewish community's doorstep.
For years, the Central Council has thrown up its hands in dismay at the enormous challenge of absorbing immigrants, not all of whom are enthusiastic members. Funding still fails to meet the demand for job training, language classes and Jewish integration programs.
Some observers predict that immigration will drop drastically as a result of the new measures -- which might please Israel, sources told JTA.
Israel has tolerated Germany's previous policy, understanding that Germany dared not refuse Jewish applicants out of a sense of responsibility vis-a-vis the Holocaust. But when slightly more Jews moved to Germany than to Israel in 2002, Israeli officials were dismayed.
Under the new law, German Jewish communities themselves would play the key role in deciding an applicant's acceptability, sparing German authorities the awkward situation of "selecting" Jews.
One complication is that some former Soviet Jews who made aliyah are returning from Israel to Russia and then applying for German citizenship, said Irene Runge, head of the Jewish Cultural Association. Such applicants might be asked to prove that they are not Israeli, Runge told JTA.
Recognizing the chances for corruption -- such as applicants trying to bribe a congregation or use nepotism to get a certificate, or a congregation trying to boost its membership to gain public funds -- some have suggested that applications should be processed by a central, representative Jewish committee.
In the works for years, the new law would turn Germany officially into an "immigration country." Political conservatives have strongly resisted that definition, insisting that the definition of German is a racial one.
In an unusual twist, the federal government apparently met separately with representatives of the Progressive Union and the Central Council to discuss the impending law -- even though the Central Council is the official representative of the country's Jewish community.
Germany signed an historic contract with the Central Council in 2003, giving it the same legal status as the Catholic and Protestant Churches. The progressive group has been angling for similar recognition.
In its statement on the new law, the Progressive Union expressed satisfaction that applicants' Jewishness would not be judged according to halacha. Though the European Reform movement does not accept members of patrilineal descent, German Progressive congregations generally welcome attendance by non-Jewish family members in hopes that one day they will choose a liberal conversion to Judaism.
Still, one insider told JTA that this aspect of the law is hardly likely to result in ballooning Progressive congregations. Rather, the source said, the new rules likely will bring to a close an historic, 15-year boom in Germany's Jewish community.
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Russian rabbi backs immigration law
(JTA) -- One of Russia’s two chief rabbis has welcomed a pending German law that may slow down Russian Jewish immigration to Germany.
“Jewish emigration from Russia is understandable and logical only when the emigration destination is Israel,” Adolf Shayevich said in a statement Tuesday. But Shayevich acknowledged that “much has been done in Germany to revive and develop the infrastructure of the Jewish community.” In recent years, more Jews have moved from the former Soviet Union to Germany, which offers better social security to emigres, than to Israel.
The new law, expected to take effect Jan. 1, will make it more difficult to immigrate to Germany.
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