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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/25/israel-russia-jewish-agency-suspension-ukraine/
Tensions High over Russia's Looming Ban of Israel's Jewish Agency
(Washington Post) Steve Hendrix - A Russian court is expected this week to approve a government request to shut down the Jewish Agency for Israel, a private charity closely affiliated with the Israeli government that helps Russian Jews immigrate to Israel. A Jewish Agency official said Moscow seemed be characterizing the routine collection of immigrants' personal data as a violation of privacy laws. "It's routine paperwork. No one is hiding it. It's what the Jewish Agency has always done," said the official. "It's something absurd. And it shows us that there are ulterior motives." 600,000 Russians remain eligible to migrate under Israel's right-of-return laws, the agency estimates. Many in Israel see Moscow's move as retaliation for Israel's increasingly vocal stance against the invasion of Ukraine. Natan Sharansky, a human rights activist who spent nine years in Soviet prisons and later served as Chairman of the Executive for the Jewish Agency (2009-2018), wrote Friday: "We must protect our interests in ways that don't rely on relinquishing our moral positions. The Jewish Agency does very important work in Russia, and I hope it will continue to do so. Nevertheless, it behooves us to remember that Israel knew how to fight for immigration even when the Jewish Agency and all Israeli diplomats were barred from Soviet Russia."