Dear Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked,
One thousand, four hundred and forty-seven days ago, I arrived in Israel with the intention of making aliyah. Despite the fact that I am a Jew, which entitles me to citizenship, I have only achieved “temporary residence” status in the Jewish state.
Minister Shaked, please accept my warmest congratulations on your new role and on the formation of a government that unites the Jewish people. We hope that you and your colleagues will at last address the needs of the people.
In that light, I am reaching out to you regarding the longstanding injustice I have suffered since the law grants you, as interior minister, the power to rectify this injustice.
Just one example of the suffering I have endured over the last few years was being informed by the ministry that my Orthodox conversion was unacceptable. This decision to deny me the right of return directly contradicted the opinion of the Jewish Agency, the Tzohar rabbinate and the clear standards set forth in the law.
Following this disgrace I attempted to get a work permit based on being married to a citizen. This too was denied as my marriage was performed through the Rabbinate, and the ministry could only recognize a civil marriage for a non-citizen, meaning my wife was considered married but I was not. This mistake alone cost me years of an ability to work and turned my family into a tzedaka case.
While I am compelled to solve this issue for myself, given the current intractability of the situation I am now convinced there is a larger issue at play. As you know, Israel is often inaccurately portrayed as a country of oppression and racism. This dangerous accusation is commonplace today in the opinion of the liberal Western world. Dishearteningly, press coverage of my story and others like me feed this false depiction of our nation.
It saddens me when stories of people of color being denied citizenship come up in the worldwide Jewish media and reflect so poorly on our country. Every time I have spoken to groups in Israel, Europe and the United States, I am asked if the way I have been treated by the past government is due to the color of my skin.
I have seen my story used as a concrete example of Israel being a racist entity, a narrative that is currently being pushed by pro-Palestinian activists to convince all liberals, including progressive Jews, that standing up for the Jewish state is the same as stepping on the Black people. In particular, the Black Lives Matter organization, of whom many members are pro-Palestinian, is coopting situations like mine to promote an antisemitic message, and their influence is growing inside the US Democratic Party.
I was recently recounting my travails to a group of Jews from the US. After hearing about the many struggles that I have been through on my long road one of them asked me how I could want to live in such a racist country. I answered, as I always do, that “Israel is not a racist country, but there is room for us to do better.”
There are many challenges for the new government, but this change of power came about because the Israeli people demanded better. You and your colleagues have many important decisions ahead of you. My great hope is that in your new role as interior minister, you can address and correct the longstanding issue left by your predecessor. Most respectfully, I am requesting that you review my case and approve my application for aliyah, so that at last I may become an Israeli citizen.
With all my gratitude for your consideration, David Ben Moshe.
The author is a writer, speaker and fitness coach. He writes about social justice, fitness and Israel, and he is currently working on a memoir of his journey from federal prison to Israel where he lives with his wife and two children.