How does IRAC safeguard the rights of new immigrants?
We help them through difficulties pertaining to proving their Jewish status. On the one hand, Israel is working to bring as many new Jewish immigrants to Israel as possible; and at the same time, these newcomers face a bureaucratic minefield. Even within different government agencies there isn’t agreement on who qualifies as a Jew. One example is the case of Anastasia Zakolodkin and her family. Anastasia came to Israel on one of the Jewish Agency’s programs geared to teenagers from the former Soviet Union. As part of the aliyah process, the teenagers complete their secondary school education in Israel, serve in the military, and then continue their lives as Israelis. Eventually, the families of the students follow the path toward aliyah. At the beginning of the process, an Israeli representative in the home country of the prospective oleh (immigrant) conducts research to determine an applicant’s religious status. If the applicant is from the FSU, identity records on religion and ethnic
