It all depends on the clerk

The bureaucracy started with us showing up at the Jewish Agency in Maryland for our interview. My wife's and kids' paperwork was not questioned. But once they found out that I was born in Russia and not in the US the attitude changed. Suddenly the letter from a Rabbi that said that we were Jewish was not good enough and I was handed a special form which was about 30 pages thick to fill out about all of my ancestry, living relatives, deceased relatives and more. I hoped that the form would be the end, but then they asked for some fun stuff. They wanted me to send them my original Russian birth certificate on which it was written that my parents are Jewish, plus my mother's birth certificate, and my parents' marriage and divorce certificates as well. Now where was I supposed to get those, when none of these documents have been in use for years and I don't have them. Besides you can tell who I am from a mile away, with my garb and my peculiar nose. Do they care? Of course not. No papers, no aliyah.

So I go home and call up my mother to ask her if she still has my birth certificate. I did not tell her what it was for, since she wasn't fond, to put it mildly, of the whole idea. Luckily she had it and she mailed it to me without questions. A few days later I asked for the other stuff and here I got a big NO. I guess she thought she could change my mind by not giving me the papers.

I call up my grandparents and ask them if they have any of this stuff. My grandfather happened to have a copy of my mother's birth certificate, which I sent in. The Jewish Agency was not satisfied. I pleaded and pleaded explaining that I can't get my mother's marriage certificate and they have everything they need, but no way. They would not even go to the Misrad HaPnim without it to submit our file.

Then I call up my father in Russia and ask him to fax me the divorce certificate. He said that he did not have the original from the Soviet Union, and he has to go get a new one from the records. He faxed it to me within a few days and I forwarded it on. Done, you think? Of course not. The Jewish Agency says, "but it does not say on it that your parents are Jewish". Of course it doesn't, Russia is not communist anymore and they don't write this type of stuff on official documents. Apparently, some clerk in Israel who was handling my file really liked the communists back in Mother Russia and wanted their stamp of approval for my Aliyah.

But the best part was this. Out of paranoia that they won't let me make Aliyah I made the local Jewish Agency rep ask the Israeli office what will happen if they decline my application. They said, "No problem. You can still make Aliyah - as a husband of a Jewish woman." This reminded me how once upon a time there already was someone who was accused of not being Jewish due to his grandmother's paper work and some how he ended up being the husband of a Jewish woman whose son built the Beis HaMikdash. Of course, he had red hair so it must have been his Irish looks that made people skeptical. (For those confused, I am referring to King David. :-)) But me? With my peculiar nose?

I got furious. 2 months went by since our interview at the Jewish Agency. I started calling up different Rabbis, officials, but everyone just kept sending me somewhere else. Finally, a Russian Jewish Agency worker in New York sent a nasty gram to some high up manager in Sochnut in Israel to tell the clerk who was handling our file to buzz off. And suddenly we were approved. Seemingly the Misrad HaPnim did not care much for any of this stuff, since I was a US citizen and not a Russian citizen, and was quite apparent that I am not trying to fake my Jewishness in order to get out of Russia.