This was stated on the air of the state radio station “Kan”.
Sofer is a member of the far-right Religious Zionism bloc, and that explains a lot. The official is upset by the fact that last year, among returnees to Israel from Russia and Ukraine, more than two-thirds (72 percent) were non-Jews. It is about 40 thousand of the 55 thousand who arrived.
Sofer is confident that “some of these new immigrants have taken advantage of the ‘Law of Return’, which must be limited.
The official proposes to eliminate from the law the norm that gives the right to repatriation to the grandchildren of Jews. After all, even the Israeli Ministry of the Interior does not assign Jewish nationality to such immigrants.
However, even earlier, the provision on grandchildren, which contains the law on return, was a matter of controversy, TASS writes. Representatives of the religious orthodox and far-right forces, who, in fact, formed a coalition with Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, and there are many of them, demand that this part of the law be declared null and void.
This, according to Sofer’s supporters, will preserve the “Jewish character” of Israel and, furthermore, protect the country and its people from the influx of returnees who do not consider themselves Jewish according to halacha.
At the same time, Sofer believes that “a solution must be found without resorting to legislation.”
The agency cites official statistics, according to which the number of returnees to Israel from December 1, 2021 to December 1, 2022 exceeded 70,000. Of these, 54 percent are Russian, 21 percent are Ukrainian, and another 3 percent are Belarusian.
The rest are French, American, Ethiopian and Argentine.
