The Aliyah and Integration Ministry announced on Sunday a sweeping overhaul of the immigration process that will require future olim (new suckers – I mean, immigrants) to complete an additional 300 forms, visit 14 new government offices, and navigate a purpose-built telephone hotline that ministry officials describe as “deliberately Kafkaesque.”
The initiative, titled “Operation Tofes Od Echad” (One More Form), is not designed to slow immigration.
According to ministry officials, it is designed to speed up cultural integration by exposing new citizens to the full spectrum of Israeli bureaucratic frustration before they even receive their teudat zehut.
“We conducted a five-year longitudinal study, and the findings were unambiguous,” said Dvora Shaham, the ministry’s director of immigrant experience.
“Olim who endured significant bureaucratic hardship in their first 90 days swore in Hebrew 40% sooner, used the phrase ‘stam biurokratia’ within six weeks, and reported feeling Israeli an average of three years earlier than those who had a smooth process.”
“Frankly,” she added, “the smooth process group never fully integrated. Several of them still say ‘excuse me’ before cutting in line.”
The new requirements, obtained by The Jerusalem Roast ahead of their official publication, include Form 27-B/Aleph, a notarized declaration of intent to reside in Israel that must be submitted in triplicate to three separate offices, none of which are in the same city.
Applicants must also complete a revised biographical questionnaire that now runs to 48 pages and includes questions such as “Please describe your relationship to the State of Israel in no fewer than 500 words,” immediately followed by “Please summarize the above in no more than 15 words.”
Additional requirements include a mandatory in-person appointment at the Interior Ministry that can only be scheduled through a website that is undergoing maintenance between the hours of 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., and a supplementary health declaration that must be authenticated by a physician, a notary, and “one neighbor who can confirm you exist.”
Perhaps most notable is the introduction of what the ministry calls the “Integration Readiness Circuit,” a series of nine government office visits that must be completed in a specific order within a 30-day window.
Each office provides a stamp required by the next office, but the seventh office is only open on alternating Tuesdays, and the ninth office does not recognize stamps from the fourth office issued after 2 p.m.
“That last detail is intentional,” Shaham said.
“By the time someone finishes the circuit, they will have argued with a clerk, waited in a line that turned out to be the wrong line, been told to come back tomorrow with a document they were never told they needed, and called their mother to complain in a voice loud enough that the entire waiting room heard. At that point, culturally speaking, they are Israeli.”
The ministry’s internal research division, which has been studying immigrant integration patterns since 2019, published its findings in a 200-page report titled “Suffering as Acculturation: A New Model for Civic Belonging.”
'Sustained, multi-layered bureaucratic pressure'
The report argues that the existing aliyah process, while already frustrating, lacks the “sustained, multi-layered bureaucratic pressure” needed to produce what the researchers call “authentic civic exasperation.”
“We found that the current process produces only mild irritation in most olim,” said Dr. Amit Reshef, the report’s lead author.
“Mild irritation is insufficient. What we need is the kind of deep, bone-level frustration that causes a person to shout ‘ma pitom?!’ at a government employee and then immediately feel at home.”
The report notes that native-born Israelis typically acquire this level of bureaucratic tolerance through 18 years of lived experience, including interactions with the Chief Rabbinate, the Interior Ministry, and the process of scheduling a Bezeq technician.
The new program, Operation Tofes Od Echad, aims to compress this developmental timeline into 90 days.
Not everyone is enthusiastic. Nefesh B’Nefesh, the organization that facilitates North American and British aliyah, issued a cautious statement noting that it “supports all efforts to help olim feel at home in Israel” while adding that “we have some questions about the telephone hotline.”
The hotline, designated as the ministry’s new “Integration Support Line,” is staffed by operators who have been specifically instructed to place callers on hold for no fewer than 45 minutes, transfer them to the wrong department at least twice, and disconnect the call at the 44-minute mark so that the process must begin again.
“The hold music was the subject of extensive testing,” Shaham confirmed.
“We initially tried Omer Adam, but found that some callers actually enjoyed it, which was counterproductive. We switched to a single accordion rendition of ‘Hevenu Shalom Aleichem,’ then trimmed it to a 90-second loop so that callers couldn’t settle into it enough to find it pleasant.”
Initial reactions from recent olim have been mixed. Daniel Kowalski, 29, who moved to Israel from Chicago three months ago, said that the existing process had already pushed him to his limits.
“I went to the Interior Ministry four times for my teudat zehut,” Kowalski said. “Each time they asked for a different document. The third time, the clerk told me the office was closing in five minutes even though I’d been waiting for two hours. I started arguing in Hebrew and didn’t even realize it.”
He paused. “Actually, maybe they’re onto something.”
Longtime immigration attorney Ronit Ben-Ari said she had reviewed the new requirements and found them “comprehensive, thorough, and genuinely upsetting,” adding that several of her clients had already begun swearing in Hebrew after merely reading the updated checklist.
“One client, a software engineer from Berlin, read Form 27-B/Aleph and called me to say, and I quote, ‘Ronit, ani lo maamin, ma ha-shtuyot ha-eleh,’” Ben-Ari said.
“He’s been in the country for two weeks. Under the old system, that level of Hebrew profanity wouldn’t have emerged for at least a year.”
The ministry says it plans to roll out the new requirements in phases beginning in April, with full implementation expected by September.
A pilot program conducted in the Haifa absorption office last year reportedly produced “extremely promising results,” including a 60% increase in Hebrew-language complaints filed with the state comptroller and a measurable uptick in new immigrants who describe their experience using hand gestures alone.
When asked whether the program might discourage potential immigrants from moving to Israel, Shaham dismissed the concern.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “Anyone who is deterred by 300 forms and a 45-minute hold time was not going to survive the rabbinate anyway. We are simply front-loading the experience.”
The ministry’s full report is available on its website, though the link currently redirects to a 404 error page. A spokesperson said this was also intentional.