Israel needs long-term plans to absorb Ukrainian immigration wave

Can Israel absorb tens of thousands of new immigrants from Ukraine and Russia in a very short time?

The war between Russia and Ukraine is intensifying, and millions of people are becoming refugees. Israel’s Law of Return grants automatic citizenship to Jews, their children and their grandchildren if they request it. It is now thought that at least 50,000 Ukrainians and Russians will want to exercise this right.

Throughout its history, Israel has absorbed even larger waves of immigrants. In its first three years since its independence in 1948, an estimated 700,000 immigrants came to Israel. At the time, the country had no choice but to house many of these new immigrants in tents. Then in the 1990s, with the fall of the Iron Curtain, another 1 million immigrants from the former Soviet Union arrived, causing a major housing and employment crisis.

But Israel now has a robust economy. Theoretically, it should have no problem absorbing tens of thousands of new immigrants. But over the last two days, the media has been flooded with chilling videos showing chaos at Ben Gurion Airport, where immigration officials from the Interior Ministry have started separating Jews, who are entitled to immigrate to Israel, and non-Jewish arrivals, who are being accepted temporarily as refugees. It is a daunting task, involving tedious documentation. As a result, it takes hours for new arrivals from Ukraine and Russia to get past that hurdle. In too many cases, the new arrivals are forced to sleep on the floor, with no access to showers or clean clothing. A few elderly arrivals have even passed out and required medical attention.

In response to the shocking photos, government officials led by Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked have announced that they are taking a new approach. New arrivals will now be taken immediately to hotels in Tel Aviv. It’s an emergency measure, though, and anyone who has dealt with the absorption of immigrants knows that it is a complicated and long-term process.

Exacerbating the situation are the urgency and scope of the situation. In the last few days, many senior government officials have spoken about Israel’s moral obligation to save as many people as possible from the European conflict, in accordance with the Law of Return and the Declaration of Independence, both of which state that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people.

“Today we are starting Operation Returning Home to bring the Jews of Ukraine, who are in danger, and Jews from the surrounding area,” announced Prime Minister Naftali Bennett March 10, at the start of a meeting of the ministerial committee for immigration and absorption.

He went on, “This is an important moment, a moment for which we have been destined and for which the State of Israel was established. The mission with which are charged is great and composed of many smaller missions and small details, and we need to understand the larger mission. The larger mission is to open the door and open the heart, to welcome our brothers and sisters who are fleeing a harsh war. … At the same time, we also need to prepare for the day after the welcome. The olim [immigrants] will need a place to live, jobs, education and health. One of the things that I have done in recent days is to talk to olim from previous waves of aliyah [immigration] and hear from them about their experiences and about the mistakes so that we might learn to do things better.”

Bennett’s words were warm, but soon he’ll butt heads with reality.

The absorption of immigrants has been sacrosanct in Israel ever since the country first declared its independence. Many prime ministers have dealt with its difficulties, often making mistakes made along the way.

It is not yet certain how many immigrants will arrive. Estimates run from tens to hundreds of thousands if the war gets worse. Figures released by the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption put the current number of immigration requests from Russia at 14,000 and from Ukraine at 7,000. The Jewish Agency anticipates tens of thousands of Jews immigrating from Ukraine this year.

Roman Bronfman is a former Knesset member who immigrated from the Soviet Union and now studies the immigration of Russian Jews in the 1990s. “There are hundreds of thousands of people in Russia and Ukraine who are eligible to immigrate to Israel according to the Law of Return,” he told Al-Monitor. He estimates that Israel can expect “about 100,000 Jews from Ukraine and 250,000 Jews from Russia.” If his numbers prove right, the country would face an enormous challenge in terms of housing and employment.

“These are two very different kinds of immigration,” he said. “The human capital is different. More people from Ukraine who are eligible to immigrate come from lower economic classes. They will arrive here as refugees with nothing and little ability to rehabilitate themselves. It will be a complicated task.”

What has been done to ease the process?

So far, the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption is prepared to house these immigrants in thousands of hotel rooms that are already booked. This week, it issued another housing tender to prepare for thousands more. As of just a few days ago, several hundred new immigrants were transferred to hotels for the next month and there are another 2,000 rooms available. So far, many of the new immigrants have chosen to live with family already in Israel, at least for now. But these two solutions will not be sufficient should the wave of immigration become much bigger than it is now.

Another problem is that most of the immigrants were unable to get out of Ukraine and Russia with any significant money. ATMs have emptied and in Russia, due to a shortage of cash, they are unable to withdraw more than $10,000 per person. Minister of Immigration and Absorption Pnina Tamano-Shata (herself an immigrant from Ethiopia) decided that the immigrants would receive additional grants amounting to several thousand shekels. But given the steep cost of food and housing, this amount is hardly enough to let them rent an apartment in central locations.

Alex Rif is the general manager of the One Million Lobby, a nonprofit that promotes the needs of Russian-speaking Israelis. She warns of a crisis in the making. “The country must not repeat the mistakes of the past,” she said. “If we do not prepare quickly, everything that happened in the 1990s could repeat itself. Once again, we will see immigrants arriving with nothing, who are unable to learn Hebrew, because they need to work.”

She added, “Once the war is over and the public’s attention moves elsewhere, there must still be people on the ground whose entire job is to care for these immigrants.”