Passports, Part II

So you may remember from my last post that I've been on an incredibly exasperating, seemingly endless journey to obtain paperwork for my Israeli citizenship from the Ministry of the Interior. The whole process has been slightly complicated due to language barriers, which I must admit is a little surprising considering that in a country where thousands of Anglos make Aliyah every year, English proficiency is apparently not a requirement for working in the main office of immigration - despite being a prerequisite for most jobs in the service industry in Tel Aviv.

My initial attempt to get a passport ended with me retreating in shameful defeat as the intolerable misrad hap'nim clerks turned me away empty handed due to a lack of proper documentation. Momma Dorfman sure was pleased to receive a hysterical long distance phone call that night, requesting that she dig up my birth certificate from the safe deposit box and priority mail it to the Middle East.

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Passports and other mishaps, part I

There are unquantifiable benefits to coming to Israel through a group program, as opposed to on your own: for example, the knowledge that someone else would take care of the bureaucratic hassles of renewing my volunteer visa after the first three months, thus relieving me from having to do the dirty work myself. You can imagine my disappointment when my madricha pulled me aside one day and explained that she was unable to obtain an extension of my visa for me.

"It seems that you're Israeli," she informed me.

"No that's not possible", I explained.

Turns out I was mistaken.

You see, my mom lived in Israel for several years when she was around my age, before returning to the Land of Opportunity in 1978. 

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