The Conference of European Rabbis (CER) has called on Israel to allow non-Israeli Jews to enter Israel and visit their families.
In a letter to MK Yisrael Eichler (UTJ), Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, CER's president, wrote: "We were happy to read about your initiative in the Knesset's Interior Committee to allow family from abroad to visit their elderly parents, after half a year in which they did not see each other due to this horrific plague."
"Indeed, as you said, there are elderly parents from abroad who want to see their children in Israel after half a year of lockdown between the countries, and they are not allowed to do so, since they do not hold Israeli passports, even though they are Jews and eligible to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return.
"We at the Conference of European Rabbis support you and hope that G-d will help your plan succeed, and you will be able to breach the walls of extraneous and selective bureaucracy, which prevents many parents from seeing their children, completely illogically."
Rabbi Goldschmidt added that at the same time, "people from other nations, from all continents, are allowed to enter [Israel] with the appropriate tests. Those same tests can be performed by Jews who are not Israeli citizens."
"May G-d help your words fall on listening ears and may you have the political power to do justice with those families who are suffering from longing," he concluded.