Israel
How did a nice Zionist academic (my nephew) have trouble with his Israel visa—and end up getting deported from Israel?
By BERNIE BELLAN
(Posted June 8, updated June 11 & 17) My nephew, Jeremy Cooperstock, is a professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at McGill University in Montreal, spending his academic sabbatical year in Jerusalem.
He arrived last August with his wife, Vinita, their two boys, Teva and Shalev, and his mother (my sister), Ruth Cooperstock, joined them in September. Jeremy had been to Israel many times before, having lived there with his parents when his own father (the late Fred Cooperstock) spent a sabbatical year there himself when Fred was a professor. Jeremy and his wife, Vinita, were also married in Israel. He has been a committed Zionist all his life, but his most recent experience with Israeli bureaucracy—which ended with him being deported from the country, has left a very bitter taste in his mouth.
According to Jeremy, he was advised by the Visiting Scientists Coordinator of the Office of the Executive Vice President For Academic Affairs at the Technion, the institution with whom he is affiliated during his sabbatical, to come to Israel with his family on B2 tourist visas, which are valid for only three months. Shortly after his arrival, as Jeremy wrote me, “Following the instructions we were given from the Technion, we made an appointment with the Ministry of Interior to renew/extend these visas, so that we could remain in the country for the rest of the year.” The Ministry only scheduled the meeting for December, after the the B2 visas had already expired, but the Technion assured Jeremy that this wouldn’t be a problem. At the appointment, Jeremy provided all the requested documentation, and was told that the Ministry would contact him after the Jewish Agency verified that his family is Jewish.
What ensued, however, turned into one of those classic Israeli bureaucratic nightmares with which so many of us are familiar.
In April, as Jeremy was preparing to attend a conference the next month in Scotland, he was quite concerned that he would not be let back into Israel upon his return because he was still awaiting word from the Ministry about the visas. He made numerous attempts to reach the Ministry, with most of these simply ignored. On one occasion when he received a call back, the Ministry official told him, “Don’t worry, everything will be fine.”
So Jeremy prepared an article about his dealings with the Israeli bureaucrats, which he asked me to publish in case he was not allowed back into Israel. As it turned out, Jeremy did get back into Israel in May. He told me back then that he was simply waved through after the passport control officer made a brief call to his superior, and issued a new B2 visa, valid through August. Shortly thereafter, Jeremy received a call from the Ministry telling him that he could now come and pay for a visa that would be good until the end of June. As Jeremy asked the agent, “Why would I make a return trip to get a visa that has a shorter duration than the one I just received at the airport?”
But, his luck was about to run out. On Friday, June 7, Jeremy returned to Israel from a workshop in Germany. This time, he was stopped at Ben Gurion Airport and told he was being refused entry. Instead, he was deported back to Germany. How poignant!
As a result, I am now publishing the chronology that Jeremy prepared back in April, in which he outlined all the hurdles he had attempted to overcome, but without success.
As noted previously, Jeremy had made an appointment with the Ministry of Interior, during which he submitted the visa extension requests for himself and his family, along with the documentation requested.
Following that initial meeting, he encountered one roadblock after another, including, in Jeremy’s words (and as described in additional detail in the sidebar):
- My requests to the Ministry for follow-up information were largely ignored
- Ministry representatives (on the few occasions when I was actually able to speak to anyone there!) failed to pass along requests for information that were apparently received from the Jewish Agency
- almost all emails to the Ministry were ignored, although most were replied to with a pointer to a web form that they insist I use for all communications
- all submissions to the aforementioned web form were simply ignored
- most transmission attempts to the Ministry’s fax numbers (04-8633348 and 02-26469547) failed with error codes of “Remote side hang-up”, Busy”, or “No answer”, and
- despite my clarification that the visa renewal/extension was urgent only for me, given my upcoming travel, and despite the assurances of the Ministry’s representative on April 28 that she would contact me shortly for an appointment to obtain my new visa, I flew out on an expired visa.
I have no idea what sort of trouble I’m about to encounter at the airport. Will they just ask me some questions, I wondered, prevent me from leaving, or prevent me from returning?
But, in any case, this experience left us shaking our heads. In April, we had a fascinating tour of the Gaza periphery with IDF Col. (Res.) Grisha Yakubovich and heard about the challenges that Gazans experience obtaining the necessary permits to enter the country. They think it’s difficult for them? I’m not sure it’s any easier being a Jewish Canadian academic!
There you have it—a Kafkaesque situation in which someone is passed from office to office, complies with all requests for information, yet ends up failing to obtain necessary documents.
Shortly before Jeremy was to be put on a plane back to Germany, I was able to speak with him and asked him what his next step would be. He told me that since their house in Montreal is rented out for the year, he will probably wait in Europe, before he reunites with his family, after his boys finish their school year in Jerusalem. However, they are now worried about the Ministry of Interior banging down the door and deporting them too. As for his mother, Ruth is scheduled to return to Canada at the end of June.
Finally, I asked Jeremy whether, having gone through this nightmarish situation, he would consider returning to Israel. His answer: “Would you?”
……….
Following is a brief timeline of the sequence of events which I have gone through in an attempt to have our visas extended:
October 22, 2018:
- faxed paperwork requesting visa extension appointment, along with letter from the Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs, Technion
November 29, 2018:
- our B-2 visas expired; but according to our contact at the Technion, this wasn’t a problem since we had an appointment scheduled with the Ministry
December 10, 2018:
- appointment with Ministry offices in Haifa, showed passports, and provided the Ministry representative with completed visa extension/renewal forms, copies of marriage certificate, mother’s ketuba, children’s birth certificates, wife’s conversion certificate
- I was told that the Ministry would get back to us once they had received an answer from the Jewish Agency as requested by Ministry representative, also faxed copies of our passports, marriage certificate, and children’s birth certificates.
January 14, 2019:
- emailed Ministry requesting follow-up; was told to wait patiently
April 1, 2019:
- multiple attempts to call (*3450 and 02-6294666) but numbers dropped connection
- emailed summary of contact attempts, noting travel plans for the following month
April 2, 2019:
- received email response requesting passport numbers; emailed names and passport numbers of family members with me in Israel
April 3, 2019:
- attempted telephone call (*3450 and 02-6294666) but received \busy network”
- attempted to download the Robby personal assistant mobile app from https://www.gov.il/he/Departments/news/app_for_self_service but received notice “this app is not available for your region”
- emailed Ministry, noting dificulties in attempts to contact them
April 6, 2019:
- resent email with names and passport numbers of accompanying family in Israel
April 8, 2019:
- received call back from Ministry; told to wait patiently; asked what would happen if visa wasn’t renewed before I travelled; answer: “I don’t know; try visiting the Jerusalem office and explaining the problem”
April 15, 2019:
- visited Jerusalem office of Ministry; after lengthy wait, told, “You must deal exclusively with the Haifa office. We can’t do anything for you here.”
April 18, 2019:
- emailed and faxed request for follow-up with chronology of previous attempts, noting imminent travel date of May 4
April 28, 2019:
- visited Jerusalem o_ffice of the Ministry of Interior a second time; spoke with Ministry office manager who couldn’t do anything; told “the file is with Haifa”.
Upon consulting the computer, the manager claimed that Ministry had contacted me in February to request the names of the witnesses to my wife’s conversion (no such contact had been made) and insisted that I must deal with the Haifa office.
- Jerusalem office manager conveyed message to have Haifa office contact me; faxed copies of wife’s Certificate of Acceptance into Judaism, both Hebrew and English versions, with names of rabbi witnesses
- Haifa representative called to say she had attempted to contact me several times in February (no record of any such calls on my phone) because the Jewish Agency couldn’t read the signatures of the rabbis, and also required a separate letter attesting to mother being Jewish (apparently, a ketuba and letter from our rabbi, indicating that my mother is Jewish, do not suffice!)
- Haifa representative confirmed receipt of faxed conversion certificates, but indicated that she also needed a letter from the Technion that was addressed to the Ministry, providing the details of my appointment, passport information for me, my family members, and type of visa requested; incorrectly claimed that the letter previously provided (October 22) had been addressed to me rather than the Ministry of Interior
- emailed and faxed copy of letter from the Executive Vice President of Academic
Affairs, Technion (faxed originally October 18, 2018), along with copy of my passport (faxed originally December 10)
May 1, 2019:
- telephone call (*3450); urgent message conveyed to Haifa office
- third attempt at faxing passport (previously provided to Ministry on two separate occasions) to 04-8633348 (finally successful)
- faxed letter from Rabbi Kaplan attesting to my mother, Ruth Cooperstock, being Jewish
- sent web form reference #585975 urgently requesting information
Updated June 11
After the intervention of a highly placed individual with contacts in Israel’s government who happens to be a good friend of my nephew, Prof. Jeremy Cooperstock, Jeremy is to be allowed back into Israel after having been refused entry into Israel & deported to Germany on Friday. His deportation from Israel was not as a result of his having the wrong visa – despite what some individuals have suggested. (See picture here of his B2 visa that was good until Aug. 10.) It was a bureaucratic nightmare that should never have happened – but just try dealing with Israel’s bureaucracy.
Israel’s Consual General in Toronto, Galit Baram, was good enough to phone me (on a Sunday morning) to acknowledge that mistakes were made in how Jeremy’s (and the other members of his family) visa situation was handled. She told me that representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Isael are currently looking into the situation and have been in touch with Jeremy.Israel
It’s Not Over Until It’s Over
By ORLY DREMAN (Jerusalem, Nov. 16, 2025) When the live hostages were returned a stone was lifted from our hearts. It was like going from Memorial Day to Independence Day. It is a relief after two years of sadness and worry about the hostages being tortured. With the ceasefire it feels good not to think every ambulance alarm is a siren and that we must run to the shelter. I would like to take things out of the shelter- like mattresses, chairs, water, first aid kit, a generator, flash light, batteries, games and canned food and put back the stuff that was there before when it was just a storage room, but it is not over. I do not see tranquility in the horizon. The children used to ask the grownups to take money to the shelter in case the house is destroyed and they will have nothing left. They also ask if they will have to be soldiers when they grow up and if they might die. We want a better future for our children. My two nieces, one from Tel Aviv and one from the center, plus several good friends whose houses were hit, can now return home.
In days of turmoil it is important to build hope and strength. The whole country was one big family due to our Jewishness, comradeship, the connection of each one of us to each family in Israel. We missed the days of quiet and freedom. Now you see more people shopping at the malls and going out to restaurants without feeling guilty; we would like to be bored.
We are living with uncertainty. It is not a question if Iran attacks, but when. Our people have gone through so much and lost so much. Living in existential stress, we are now going back to routine tension; however, now we already have chronic sleep disturbances. The reservists got out of the war, but the war will never leave them – what they saw and experienced – the trauma and the thoughts that never leave. Therefore, many soldiers, as well as survivors of Oct 7th, have committed suicide. The reservists are also those who paid the highest prices, not just on the battle fields, but also when they returned to civilian life. Because they served in the army during such a long war, they were fired from their jobs or lost their businesses and they are in debt.
Early in the morning we wake up to hear the news. There is no good news – only the names of those who were killed (even during the cease fire). We check if any dead hostages were returned. These are the values we were raised on; we do not leave anyone behind. Hamas is returning them slowly, one every few days. The relatives of the fallen who are still in Gaza are going through a storm of emotions. We cannot heal until everybody is back home. Then come the funerals – which are heart breaking, but it is a closure for those bereaved families. Hearing about Jews being attacked somewhere in the world is already considered normal. I recommend reading a book by Eli Sharabi called “Hostage.” After being tortured in captivity he returned to find out that his wife, his two daughters, and his brother were murdered. He tells about the starvation, the darkness, the loneliness, the physical and mental pain. He is a very brave, strong, optimistic man who chose life.
In the last few weeks there have been many reports about Iran, which is rushing to develop missiles for which they are getting the components from China and North Korea. Hamas and Hezbollah we cannot believe; they are already rearming. For every terrorist that is killed hundreds of new ones arise. We believed them in the past and then came Oct. 7th.
The ceasefire is not significant to Hamas. Only this week they returned an Israeli hostage who was taken into captivity eleven years ago during a ceasefire. If they do not return all the bodies then we feel in our hearts that it is not over. They suck hatred from birth. They are incited at the mosques and at school. Killing Jews is the most grand thing for them. They say out loud that there will never be reconciliation. Peace talk for them is a weakness because if you have talk then you cannot attack and they want to attack. Whatever we offer them – they want more and more. They know how important the holiness of life is to us, so they use it to demand more all the time. Maybe Hamas did not defeat us militarily, but they did beat us politically. The situation of Israel in the world is the worst it has ever been. We are isolated economically and socially. We feel like a child who is excommunicated by bullies.
Once again we still have hope that the words of the prophet Isaiah will happen: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning-hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore”.
Israel
Israeli Parliament Advances Death Penalty Bill for Convicted Terrorists
The Israeli parliament has advanced a bill that would mandate the death penalty for Palestinian terrorists convicted of killing Israeli citizens, with some lawmakers believing it would prevent future prisoner-release deals.
In a vote held late on Monday – the first of four needed for the measure to become law – the bill passed with 39 in favor and 16 against, out of 120 lawmakers.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben–Gvir had called on all political factions to back the bill, which he has said was aimed at creating deterrence against “Arab terrorism.”
“This is how we fight terror; this is how we create deterrence,” he said in a statement after the initial vote. “Once the law is finally passed — terrorists will be released only to hell.”
SOME PARTIES BOYCOTTED MONDAY’S VOTE
The bill will now move to a parliamentary committee for further debate before a second and third vote. It is not guaranteed that it will become law, with several key political parties having boycotted Monday’s initial vote.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid was quoted by Israeli media as saying that he would not vote in favor of the bill.
The PLO, the Palestinian national umbrella political group, condemned the vote, with Palestinian National Council Speaker Rawhi Fattouh calling the draft law “a political, legal, and humanitarian crime”. The vote was also criticized by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Israel abolished the death penalty for murder in 1954, and the only person ever executed in Israel after a civilian trial was Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Nazi Holocaust, in 1962.
Ben–Gvir has argued that imposing the death penalty would deter anyone considering an attack similar to the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed nearly 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and resulted in 251 hostages being taken to Gaza.
Israel stopped its ensuing military campaign against Hamas last month, when a tenuous ceasefire was agreed that included the release of 20 remaining living hostages held in Gaza, plus the remains of deceased ones in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
PRISONER RELEASE DEALS
Israel has released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees since October 2023 in exchange for the release of the hostages that were being held by Palestinian terrorists.
Most of the hostages have been released except for the remains of three deceased Israelis and one foreigner.
Tzvika Foghel, a member of Ben–Gvir‘s Jewish Power party and chair of the parliamentary national security committee, where the bill will now be debated, said imposing the death penalty would mean no more prisoner deals.
Palestinians who have been released have included many convicted of serious crimes, including murder.
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the October 2023 attack on Israel, was released in 2011 as part of an exchange of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for one Israeli soldier held in Gaza. Some Israeli politicians such as Ben–Gvir have, during the war in Gaza, opposed the release of Palestinians who were involved in the killings of Israelis.
Ben–Gvir handed out sweets to fellow lawmakers after the initial vote passed. Critics noted that, in Gaza, some Palestinian militants had handed out sweets to the public after the October 2023 attack.
Israel
Israel report by former Winnipegger Bruce Brown
10 minutes
(Posted Dec. 24, 2024)
02:11 AM: Sound asleep.
2.11.01 AM: Wide awake. Awoken by a blaring missile alarm. Incoming. Took me no time to react. Ivan Pavlov would be proud. I quickly scooped up my dog. Grabbed my glasses. An inhaler. My phone and power cord. And sprinted to the safe room. Right across the hall. My wife overseas on vacation. So did this one alone. Er with my dog. We have 90 seconds to reach safety so no real panic, relatively speaking.
2.11.09 AM: In my safe room. Slid shut the heavy steel slabs across the window. You can hear this happening throughout the building. Kinda like a horror movie. Screech. Slam. Screech. Slam. Screech. Slam. Then mine. Screech. Slam. Next I jumped across the room and slammed shut the heavy, reinforced, steel door. It also makes a slamming sound, a really loud one. Then slumped down on the couch with my dog. With some level of relief. Where is this missile coming from. Can’t be from Gaza, they don’t have the capability anymore…I hope. Nor Lebanon, living too far south…I hope. Yemen? Possible. Those dang Houthis?
2. 14 AM: Oh oh. Need to pee. Like really bad. Once in the safe room, you should stay there for ten minutes. Unless there is another siren. Each siren requires a ten minute respite. Respite? Odd choice of words as you are not really resting. Way too tense. Especially as you can occasionally hear the booms of intercepted missiles up above. Kind of unnerving. Back to my need to pee. Its quite dangerous leaving the room during this period. Should your place be hit by the missile or falling debris from the sky. You don’t want to be caught with your pants down, literally, hovering over your toilet. And condos have been hit in Rehovot with some death and much destruction. Hmmm. To pee or not to pee. That is the question. Whether tis better to suffer the pangs of having to pee or the missiles of outrageous fortune. You get the point.
2.14.10 AM: Peeing in the bathroom.
2.14.40 AM: Back in the safe room. With my dog. Sitting on the couch. Fiddling with the remote control. I work in hi tech. The semiconductor world which can be pretty complex. But I simply have not mastered the remote. Really want to see what’s going on. Where is the missile from. Are there more attacks elsewhere in the country. Pushing this button and that button But the TV still off. Okay. Will check my cell. Although the connection sometimes comes and goes when shuttered in the heavily reinforced concrete and steel safe room. Works! Ya! Showing three bars. Sometimes four. Checking my feeds. But no news yet.
2.17 AM: Seriously. I need to pee again. Like really bad. Dang prostate! To pee or not to pee. That is the question…. You get the point. I chose to pee. This time I don’t actually slam shut the heavy, reinforced, steel door. And my dog follows me out. This could get complicated. But first things first.
2.17.10 AM: Peeing in the bathroom.
2.17.40 AM: Chasing after my dog around the condo. Poncho!!! There he is. In the living room. Like master. Like pet. He too is relieving himself. Probably the tension. Dogs can sense these things. “Faster Poncho!. Faster!” I encourage him.
2,18.02 AM: We’re back in the safe room. The heavy, reinforced, steel door slammed shut. And then I start worrying. What if I have to pee again. Its really dangerous out there. Idea! I’ll bring a cleaning pail in here. And if worse comes to worse. Well, I am alone. Sans my dog.
2.18.22 AM: I dart for the cleaning cabinet in the bathroom to grab the pail. Making sure the heavy, reinforced, steel door is shut less my dog run out again. Wait! As it dawns on me at 02.18.22 AM. This is not the smartest thing to do. At least I could have combined grabbing the pail with actually having to pee again. Like maybe I could hold out for the next three minutes or so in the safe room. No urgent need for the pail. But I am already there….
2.18.25 AM: Grab the red cleaning pail
2.18.28 AM: Back in the safe room. The heavy, reinforced, steel door slammed shut again. Siting on the couch with my dog again. Red pail glaring at me from the side of the room…daring me. But my bladder is relaxed. I try the remote again. I feel like my 85 year old mother who often complains about getting her remote to work. I console myself thinking that it must be the batteries. Hmmm. Maybe a mad rush for the utility room to get some new batteries. But that would be mad. I’ll take care of it in the morning. Only a few more minutes and I can safely leave the safe room and go back to bed.
2.19.45 AM: I pour myself a glass of mineral water. This I store in the safe room per Homefront commands. Fresh batteries not, hrmph. As I down the water I realize this is probably not the best idea. Less it creates the urge to pee…. Alas no. Start surfing my feed again. The intercontinental missile was fired by those crazy, dang Houthis from Yemen. All of central Israel sent to their safe rooms. Dang Houthis! The next couple minutes go by pretty smoothly. Although seems like an eternity.
2.21 AM: Back in bed. Albeit sleep comes slowly as my adrenaline starts to reside.
As it were. Israel bombed the dang Houthis that night. For the third time since the outbreak of the war. In retaliation for them firing over 200 ballistic missiles and 170 drones at Israel, which fortunately had not resulted in much damage. We struck them with over 60 bombs in two air raid sorties. Destroying mainly military targets as well as ports and energy infrastructure. Maybe that will teach them for waking me -and a million other Israelis- in the middle of the night.
As it were. Falling debris from the dang Houthi attack landed on a school in central Israel, forcing its collapse. Fortunately and thank G-d it was the middle of the night. Sometime between 2:11 AM and 2.21 AM. So no casualties. Can’t even imagine the tragedy had this strike occurred mid-day.
As it were. I changed the batteries in the remote. It works just fine now. And I left the red cleaning pail in the safe room….just in case. But I hope the dang Houthis finally learned their lesson. Although probably not.
As it were. Two nights later. Another 2:00AM missile from the dang Houthis. . They just wont let me sleep….
As it is. Please continue donating to the Israeli war and revival efforts. You may have given earlier. But give again. The financial costs to Israel are and will be billions. Billions! Sderot and Metulla and Tel Avi and Haifa are Israel’s front lines. Israel is the diaspora’s front line.
Bruce Brown. A Canadian. And an Israeli. Bruce made Aliyah…a long time ago. He works in Israel’s hi-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night. Bruce is the winner of the 2019 American Jewish Press Association Simon Rockower Award for excellence in writing. And wrote the 1998 satire, An Israeli is…. Bruce’s reflects on life in Israel – political, social, economic and personal. With lots of biting, contrarian, sardonic and irreverent insight