Dozens of people managed to successfully enter Israel by impersonating yeshiva students earlier this week.
In order to attend a wedding in Kfar Saba on Tuesday night, more than 30 people from New York succeeded in obtaining student visas, which allow for entry into Israel for the purpose of studying in a yeshiva.
People who hold student visas are able to gain entry into Israel despite almost all tourism being prohibited under the COVID-19 travel restrictions.
The New York residents originally attempted to obtain the visas through Amudim, an ultra-Orthodox organization, which has been helping teenagers obtain student visas in order to attend various gap-year learning programs in Israel even during the coronavirus crisis.
The organization was approached by a group of over 30 people, all claiming to require student visas to enter Israel in mid-June.
Amudim CEO Zvi Gluck became suspicious, however, and contacted the Israeli consulate, which had also noticed discrepancies in the applications.
Gluck discovered that instead of having been in contact with 30 plus yeshiva-age boys hoping to spend their year in Israel, he had been unwittingly providing help to a group of men and women, many over the age of 50, who were attempting to bypass the coronavirus travel restrictions in order to enter Israel for a wedding.
“In addition to tarnishing the reputation of Amudim and the Orthodox Jewish community, your reckless actions have caused immeasurable damage,” wrote Gluck on the Yeshiva World website.
Despite Gluck’s attempts to prevent the visas from being presented to the group, they succeeded in entering the country ahead of the wedding after successfully obtaining the student visas through the Israeli consulate in Belgium.
The Israeli authorities will reportedly no longer be processing student visa requests from the three Israeli yeshiva institutions that were involved in the fraud attempt.
The Foreign Ministry has responded to the incident, saying it is familiar with it and that “the Foreign Ministry, together with the Population and Immigration Authority, are investigating the circumstances of the incident.”
Concerns over entry into Israel have risen in the past few days as a new outbreak of the coronavirus appears to be threatening the country, with over 125 new cases reported on Tuesday alone.
According to a report from N12, at least 40% of the people who tested positive for COVID-19 in the month of June had recently returned to Israel from abroad.
Airport restrictions are set to be tightened in the coming days, with a return of mandatory mask-wearing, an improved testing system for passengers on incoming flights, and a NIS 5,000 fine for people violating quarantine orders all reportedly in the works.