In a letter to Interior Minister Moshe Alber on Tuesday, Minister of Statelessness Gideon Saar called for citizenship to be granted to the family of Elishai Young, a fallen soldier killed in Gaza on Saturday.
“During my tenure 10 years ago, I took the decision to regulate the status of members of the Hebrew Israeli community and their families serving in the IDF,” said Saar, who served as Interior Minister from 2013 to 2014.
“According to this decision, members of the community serving in the IDF and their families have the right to submit a citizenship application at the end of 41 months from the date of conscription,” Searle wrote.
“Sadly, the late Sergeant Major passed away before serving 41 months in the Israel Defense Forces. The Young family paid the highest and most painful price of the war for their country and its security.
“In light of the above, it is fair to grant citizenship to the family of the late Elishai.” Sergeant Elishai Young was killed in combat in the Gaza Strip on October 20, 2024, and is a member of the African-Israeli community of Dimona. was a member of (Credit: IDF Public Relations Unit/Canva (Illustration))
Sergeant Young, who was killed in action in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, was reportedly a member of Africa’s Hebrew-Israeli community and not an Israeli citizen.
Who are the African Hebrew Israelites?
African-Hebrew Israelis first arrived in Israel in the late 1960s, primarily from Chicago, and applied for citizenship under the Law of Return. However, the government ruled in 1973 that they were ineligible for citizenship because they could not prove they were of Jewish descent.
Some members previously faced deportation, but were given a lifeline by the Citizenship and Israeli Immigration Review Tribunal in 2021, Army Radio said.
The Dimona-based community obtained an injunction in 2021, temporarily blocking the state from enforcing the deportation order.
Maya Gur Arieh contributed to this report.
