Aliyah and absorption

Providing a full envelope for lone soldiers and immigrant reservists.

• •Those who immigrate to Israel and serve in it should not have to cope alone with the economic, social and personal difficulties that come with service.
• •We will ensure lone soldiers, immigrant reservists and their families a continuous envelope in housing, financial assistance and mental health, in their languages, during service and after it.
• •We will advance the Lone Soldier Law, which will entrench in legislation the status and rights of lone soldiers and ensure continuity of rights even when their life circumstances change during service.
• •In particular, we will ensure that an immigrant soldier recognized as a lone soldier does not automatically lose their status and rights only because their family members immigrated to Israel during their service.
• •We will also expand assistance for maintaining contact between lone soldiers and their families abroad, and ease family visits to Israel through help with flight and accommodation costs.

Ensuring freedom of choice and equality in personal status.

• •Advancing civil marriage in Israel and ensuring every citizen the right to choose how and with whom to marry, regardless of recognition by the religious establishment.
• •Expanding the option of civil burial and ensuring it is available and accessible across the country, so that every person can be buried according to their worldview, faith and choice.
• •Allowing public transportation on Shabbat across the country and transferring the powers regarding opening businesses on Shabbat to the local authorities.

Ensuring Hebrew studies for every immigrant and a full educational envelope for immigrants' children.

• •Expanding the options for Hebrew studies and ensuring flexible frameworks adapted to age, profession and the daily routine of immigrants, including evening ulpanim and tracks adapted to working immigrants.
• •Ensuring immigrants' children the linguistic, educational and emotional support needed for their integration into the education system.
• •Entrenching the funding of Hebrew teaching for immigrant students, ensuring that every immigrant student whose school has no ulpan will receive state-funded Hebrew-study hours during their first three years after aliyah.
• •At the same time, strengthening the social envelope given to immigrants' children, working to prevent racism and bullying in the education system, and expanding the integration of young immigrants in youth movements, the service year and pre-military academies.

Expanding housing solutions for immigrants and correcting the Aliyah and Integration Ministry's housing reform.

• •Expanding housing solutions for immigrants, increasing rent assistance and correcting the housing reform so that rent assistance is given across the country.
• •Working to reduce the wait of immigrants eligible for public housing and resuming the increase of the public-housing stock through construction and purchase of apartments, and expanding the supply of affordable housing and long-term rental for immigrants.
• •Giving a special response to elderly immigrants, low-income families and immigrants in their first years in Israel, for whom housing costs are a significant barrier to integration and to building a stable life in the country.

Removing barriers to aliyah.

• •Working to reduce waiting times and remove barriers in the aliyah process, and ensuring fast, transparent and equal handling of aliyah applications.
• •Accelerating the handling of families eligible to immigrate to Israel who are still waiting, including in Ethiopia, and working to carry out government decisions regarding bringing those waiting for aliyah.
• •Also, ensuring that the State of Israel is prepared to help Jews and Jewish communities in an emergency.

Protecting the Law of Return and the rights of those eligible under it.

• •Entrenching the Law of Return in a Basic Law and protecting the rights of grandchildren of Jews under it.
• •We will not allow any narrowing of the scope of the right to immigrate to the country and will oppose any attempt to give the Orthodox rabbinical establishment a monopoly on conversions.
• •We will ensure that no immigrant is required to choose between immigrating to Israel and their family.
• •We will expand the response to adult fourth-generation members of immigrant families, and to elderly parents of immigrants.

Increasing the absorption basket and strengthening immigrants' economic security.

• •The absorption basket is meant to allow immigrants to start their lives in Israel and integrate without the first months after aliyah becoming an economic struggle.
• •We will double the period for which the absorption basket is given, from half a year to a year, and increase the financial assistance given under it, to give immigrants the time and resources needed to learn Hebrew, integrate into employment and build stable lives in Israel.
• •We will provide a special response to immigrants who came to Israel at an older age and did not manage to accumulate sufficient pension rights.
• •We will increase the economic safety net for elderly immigrants without a pension or with low income, by increasing support and expanding eligibility for it, to ensure they can grow old in Israel with dignity.

Creating a single address that reduces bureaucracy and making services accessible in immigrants' languages.

• •Creating a single government address that will accompany the immigrant through the absorption process, a unified digital file and clear timelines for handling applications, and making sure that information and documents already submitted to one government authority are not required again by another.
• •Advancing a reform of the service given to immigrants at the Population and Immigration Authority, simplifying bureaucratic procedures and shortening handling times for aliyah, status and family-reunification files.
• •Strengthening the service units that handle immigrants and ensuring clear advance information about the documents, conditions and handling stages required in each procedure.
• •Expanding the accessibility of public services in immigrants' languages.
• •Government websites, forms and essential services will be available in the languages used by immigrant populations, and we will work to expand language accessibility in health, banking and tax services too.

Recognizing education and professional certifications and helping immigrants work in their profession.

• •Allowing the processes of recognizing degrees, certificates and professional certifications to begin even before immigrating to Israel, so that immigrants can arrive when the recognition of their education has already begun and shorten the path to integrating into work in their profession.
• •Simplifying and shortening the processes of recognizing education and certifications acquired abroad, canceling unnecessary translation and verification requirements and expanding programs for professional Hebrew studies, supplementary training, internships and job placement.
• •Advancing tailored tracks for immigrants in professions requiring an Israeli license, with emphasis on health, law and education, to allow immigrants who meet the required professional level to complete the licensing requirements and integrate quickly into their profession.

Ensuring equal treatment for immigrants leaving Israel and for their family members visiting it.

• •Ending discrimination between immigrants and other citizens in issuing passports, and ensuring that an immigrant is entitled to receive an Israeli passport under the same conditions that apply to other Israeli citizens.
• •A temporary period of study or work abroad will not, in itself, negate their eligibility for Israeli travel documents.
• •At the same time, setting clear, equal and transparent rules for examining the entry into Israel of family members and guests of Israeli citizens, including citizens from the former Soviet Union countries.
• •Strengthening oversight of decisions to refuse entry and to deport, and ensuring respectful treatment and proper conditions for those detained on entering Israel or awaiting their removal.

Fighting antisemitism and strengthening ties with diaspora Jewry.

• •We will stand with Jewish communities coping with antisemitism and strengthen cooperation with them in funding protection of Jewish institutions and in efforts against antisemitic hatred and incitement.
• •We will strengthen the ties between Israel and diaspora Jewry through government investment in Jewish and Zionist education, in programs that bring young Jews to Israel, and in ongoing encounters between Israelis and Jewish communities around the world.
• •We will work to introduce a program in the education system for studying Jewish peoplehood and strengthening Israeli students' emotional connection to diaspora communities.
• •We will ensure equal and respectful treatment of all streams of Judaism and strengthen the place in Israel of Jews and communities of all streams.
• •We will also work to preserve and pass on the heritage of immigrant communities in Israel, including the heritage of Soviet Jewry, Ethiopian Jewry and Prisoners of Zion, by encouraging education and research programs and supporting cultural and creative enterprises.

Simplifying and shortening the graduated process for regularizing the status of spouses of Israeli citizens.

• •The State of Israel should encourage couples in which one is an Israeli citizen and the other a citizen of a foreign country to build their home in Israel.
• •We will allow the couple to begin the process while still abroad and avoid the need to present the documents separately to the consulate and to the Population Authority.
• •We will set a clear timeline for being summoned to an interview in Israel and give every foreign spouse the ability to work in Israel after arriving.

Formulating a five-year plan to encourage the return of Israelis who left the country.

• •Entrenching in a government decision a broad five-year plan to encourage the return of Israelis who left the country, creating assistance tracks in employment, absorbing children in the education system, entrenching tax benefits in the first years after return, and renewing National Insurance eligibility with no waiting period.
• •At the same time, significantly expanding the activity of the Israeli Houses, the Israeli culture centers and centers for contact with Israeli communities in the diaspora, also addressing immigrant citizens who left the country and wish to be absorbed in it again.