Saar's zigzag: After Interior Minister Gideon Saar tried in recent weeks to signal that he was headed for a comeback, and after boasting about the decision to force the Tel Aviv municipality to close supermarkets and businesses on Shabbat, today the minister is making a change of direction and presenting - in a precedent-setting decision - a new interpretation of the Law of Return, according to which, for the first time since the establishment of the state, same-sex couples who married abroad to a Jew who seeks to immigrate to Israel will be able to immigrate with him by virtue of their marriage - even if they are Gentiles - and become Israeli citizens.
The Interior Minister's directive in principle was received after receiving requests from the Jewish Agency and requests from same-sex couples to the Population Authority. The decision is effective immediately, and the first couple has already received immigrant status today.
In a letter he sent to the Director General of the Population and Immigration Authority, Amnon Ben Ami, Sa'ar writes that he examined the references forwarded to him regarding "requests for recognition of the eligibility of same-sex couples married to each other to immigrate to Israel according to Section 4A of the Law of Return.".
And so Saar writes:
""The purpose of the Law of Return is to bring together all members of the Jewish people from the diaspora. The purpose of Section 4A thereof, which was amended in 1970, was to allow the family members of the Jew, who also wish to immigrate with him, to come to Israel as his equals, in order to encourage the immigra- tion of the Jewish people to Israel.
In this regard, I see no reason to distinguish between Jews who married heterosexually and Jews who married members of their own sex abroad, according to law. Both meet the purposes of the Law of Return, in the sense of "and their sons returned to their borders.".
Therefore, Sa'ar asks Ben Ami to instruct accordingly, "both the Population and Immigration Authority bureaus in Israel, and the Jewish Agency, which examines eligibility for an immigrant visa abroad, to consider anyone who marries a Jew, even if it is a same-sex marriage, as someone who is also eligible for an immigrant visa under Section 4A of the Law of Return.".
Let us recall that upon the beginning of Sa'ar's term as Minister of the Interior, he "corrected" the "distortion" from the days of Eli Yishai as Minister and ordered that daylight saving time be adjusted so that there are years in which the Yom Kippur fast will occur at this time, and will only end at 7:00 PM.
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