All Aliyahs are on hold?

Soul on fire

Tue, Jun 25 2013, 3:15 am

I just saw this on the Nefesh B'Nefesh Facebook page...can anyone elaborate?

Official Nefesh B'Nefesh Fan Page

The Israeli embassy has made the following announcement: “Due to sanctions from the ministry of foreign affairs in Israel, all consular services are suspended until further notice, except in cases of extreme emergency. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

This means that no Aliyah visas or Israeli passports will be issued at this time. Please note that you cannot make Aliyah without an Aliyah visa or an Israeli passport.

Nefesh B’Nefesh is in touch with The Jewish Agency for Israel and working to resolve this problem as quickly as possible.

FranticFrummie

Tue, Jun 25 2013, 3:19 am

Yipes!

Any idea what made that happen? Budget cuts? National emergency? Workers on strike?

grace413

Tue, Jun 25 2013, 5:12 am

DrMom wrote:

We are more strike-prone than the US is. Especially when the weather is nice.

And for teachers, right before the first day of school.

amother

Tue, Jul 02 2013, 1:03 pm

grace413 wrote:

Strike by Foreign Ministry employees. Shouldn't last too long.

They are still on strike, I don't have my Aliyah visa and I'm scheduled for the July 22 NBN flight.

Sad

They are still "working on it"

Tamiri

Tue, Jul 02 2013, 1:20 pm

Take a deeeeep breath and get on with life. It should be okay. Par for the course living here.

FranticFrummie

Tue, Jul 02 2013, 1:48 pm

amother wrote:

grace413 wrote:

Strike by Foreign Ministry employees. Shouldn't last too long.

They are still on strike, I don't have my Aliyah visa and I'm scheduled for the July 22 NBN flight.

Sad

They are still "working on it"

Just be glad it's not a dock worker's strike. You'd get there, and then your container would be held in port indefinitely! It's happened before.

shabbatiscoming

Tue, Jul 02 2013, 1:58 pm

I know two families who should have been on today or tomorrow's NBN flight. Their entire lives are in limbo. They have left their rentals, shipped their things. They are living from suitcases and I know one family has family to stay with, but the other family, I have no idea. Its a bit hard tamiri, for these people, who have sort of everything on hold, to get on with their lives. They are in a terrible limbo stage. Left their jobs, have not put kids in summer activities. Phones have been turned off, no internet. Its hard.

chaiz

Tue, Jul 02 2013, 10:34 pm

Shabatiscoming, thank you for understanding. Right now we are waiting for approval, which we should be getting any day. So it is not yet an issue. But, it might be when we need to book tickets. We do have a place to stay if we cannot go as fast as we were planning, but what about the other aspects. We cannot just sit around doing nothing. It is true that we need to be flexible when living in the holy land, but certain things are hard to be flexible about when you have no control and there is so much at stake.

amother

Wed, Jul 03 2013, 12:30 am

stillgrowing wrote:

Look at the nbn site. Looks like aliyas are going ahead as planned

It says they are working on a solution & they hope everyone will be able to go as planned. Unless we're looking at different places.
(we are supposed to go July 29th & sent in our passports for visas a few weeks ago)

FranticFrummie

Wed, Jul 03 2013, 12:41 am

Well, now you can say that you've had "an official Israeli experience".

Hang in there, this too shall pass. Hug

achot613

Wed, Jul 03 2013, 6:33 am

For all of Those that said its no big deal and that it's just a strike-
For sure It is a big deal! People have been waiting to make Aliyah, some for many years and have gone through alot of trouble to come here. People like my parents who just sold there house and most of there possessions and are living off of the kindness of friends until they can get here with Aliyah visa. This strike is shtuyot like most strikes and it's really not fair they are toying with people's lives. Ok that felt good to get out ; )
Please pray that the strike is solved soon.

grace413

Wed, Jul 03 2013, 6:37 am

achot613 wrote:

Please pray that the strike is solved soon.

Happy to help out in that regard.

I'm sure it would have made me insane. I still remember how much work it was to get ready for aliyah and how to manage etc.

amother

Wed, Jul 03 2013, 10:26 am

I'm the amother from the July 22 NBN flight without visas.

1. I gave up my apt in the states
2. I am paying rent in Israel
3. My stuff has shipped
4. I have a job starting at the end of the month - B"H

What I'm going to do:
1. Wait to see what happens by 07/12. If it's resolved, than WOO HOO!
2. If it's not resolved, I will purchase my own tickets to Israel and finish my paperwork from within.

We can't afford to wait indefinitely - our shipment will be charged by the day once it gets to Israel and I can't afford to lose a job and continue paying rent in an apartment we don't live in as well as live on couches of friends and families in the US.

Liba

Wed, Jul 03 2013, 10:39 am

You will pay taxes on your shipment if you haven't made aliya. It may be worth checking to see which is cheaper....

Tamiri

Wed, Jul 03 2013, 11:38 am

When we made Aliya, the Yom Kippur War broke out. We could not get our container out of storage for SEVEN MONTHS.
And we had no eggs to eat.
BTDT.

Liba

Wed, Jul 03 2013, 11:47 am

When we made aliya our lift came a month before the shipper estimated it would. LOL B"H we were already in E"Y but what a mad dash to get paperwork taken care of...

OP I really hope things work out easily and smoothly for you. All beginnings are hard, but hopefully the hard part for you will just be the stress of worrying if things will happen on time!