Help or Advice Needed - Cannot Obtain Police Report from Japan
EDIT: SOLVED!
Twenty-five minutes (😳) after I posted this, my waiver came through by email. I'm going to leave it up for encouragement for anyone who's facing frustrations. Many thanks to those of you who have already replied, and to those of you who were going to give your advice but haven't had time yet. In the end, this is a microcosm of why I'm making Aliyah. Strangers who I will never know taking their time to read a long, not terribly interesting post, and then using their time to help me. I know it's not all unicorns and rainbows and shit over there (far from it), but this why I'm uprooting my life to make Aliyah.
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Hi everyone,
I would really appreciate your advice and ideas. This will be a long post, so I think the best way to handle it is to divide it into three parts. First, I'll ask my three main questions below. Second, I'll give three main points of key information. Finally, third, I'll explain in more detail about my Aliyah issue.
Let's start with number one, my three main questions:
- What, if anything, can I do about the fact that it is impossible to obtain my Japanese police report? (more below)
- Would there be any point to just drop the process from my home country, the US, and to apply from inside Israel? Please note that in May, I tried to get an appointment in Tel Aviv, but I couldn't because I don't have a citizen number.
- Does my Aliyah process, which I describe below, seem like just normal challenges, or does this go beyond the frustrations that almost everyone experiences in the Aliyah process?
Now, let's go to number two, which is three points of key information that I ask you to keep in mind to decide if you can help me out with answers or advice for my three main questions (above):
- I lived in Japan for two years in the 1990s. I have no criminal or arrest record there, but I cannot prove it.
- The only thing that's holding up my Aliyah application is my police report from Japan. It is simply NOT possible to get a police background check from Japan. I haven't been there for 30 years, so I don't have the necessary documents anymore, and even if I did, my former Japanese prefecture does not issue background reports unless you apply from inside Japan. Please take this at face value - I speak and read Japanese, and I've tried everything, It is impossible to obtain the police report. This is not a request for information on how to get my Japanese police report, it's a request for information on how to get approved for Aliyah
- The Jewish Agency has approved all of my other documents for Aliyah, including apostilled police checks from the US (FBI report), Spain, and Portugal. I had my interview with the Jewish Agency in late July.
Now, let's move on to the third and final part. I'll describe my Aliyah situation in more detail. Much of this is adapted from an email conversation with Nefesh B'Nefesh (NBN) and the Jewish Agency (JA).
I began the Aliyah process in 2022, but I stopped it. Then I applied again this year. I was extremely careful to ask both NBN, and the JA about my Japanese police report, since I knew that I would not be able to get it. Both told me that it was nothing to worry about, and that I would receive a waiver for it.
Flash forward to July and August of this year. All of my original documents have been formally approved, and I had my interview with the JA. Twelve days after my interview, the JA emailed me to say that I did, in fact, need my Japanese background report, in addition to the ones from the US, Spain, and Portugal that I had submitted. WTF 😳⁉️
As noted above, there is NO way that I can get my Japanese background report (if I could, it would show no arrests or charges).
In early May, just over three months ago, I was staying for a few weeks with my Israeli girlfriend (now ex) in a Tel Aviv suburb. Before I left the US for Israel in April, I checked to be sure that I had all of my documents ready so that I could apply for Aliyah from inside of Israel.
You can imagine my shock when NBN advised me to leave Israel (something I still can't wrap my head around - NBN told a Jewish person that he had to leave Israel to apply for Aliyah ). The reason they told me to leave was to return to the US to order another apostilled divorce certificate (I have no children). For reasons that no one has ever explained to me, my earlier apostilled divorce certificate, which the Jewish Agency in Madrid accepted in 2022 after I presented it to them in person, was now unacceptable. I was not convinced that I needed a new apostilled divorce certificate, and I am not now, but I did as ordered.
Then my Israeli girlfriend and I broke up, which made staying in Israel on a tourist visa much more complicated. I left Israel - as advised, and then I ordered my new divorce certificate. I waited weeks for it to arrive. After it arrived, I ordered a new apostille. Then I waited for that that to arrive.
Since my application was taking much longer than I had reasonably expected, I asked NBN in July if it would cause any problems if I went to visit friends in another country for a little while. They told me that it would be no problem.
It was a big problem. At that time in July, I still had to present my physical documents to the JA. I put everything in an envelope, ready for a family member in the US to mail to the JA when requested. But I was in another country with my passport. Long story short, I had to buy yet another flight, this one to return early to the US to show my passport. I wanted to complete the interview as soon as possible in order to make Aliyah once and for all, to start to build a permanent life in Israel.
Last week, early/mid-August, when my contact at the JA told me about that I'd need my Japanese police report, I asked her to re-read the document that I had sent in May, in which I had explained in painstaking detail why I will never be able to get a Japanese police report, and that I was all but promised a waiver.
I asked NBN and the JA for advice. They told me to contact the Japanese consulate. As if I hadn't already done that 🙄, and twenty other things to try to obtain it!!!
She also told me that she's contacted the Ministry about my Japanese police report, and that "she'll let me know when she hears something".
She'll let me know when she hears something 🤔. That's not a sentence that inspires much confidence. Now, the problem is that I haven’t been able to sign a lease for a place to live, or to look for a job since I was advised to leave Israel in May. I had quite reasonably believed that I’d be back in a month or two for Aliyah, after my interview. Now, as I write this in mid-August, I’ve effectively had my life on hold for over three months as I wait to make Aliyah. Because of a new divorce certificate that I probably didn't need, and a background check that they said I'd receive a waiver for.
And now I'm being asked yet again to wait until…well, I actually have NO idea when I'm being asked to wait until! It's not really the wait in itself that's the issue, it's the fact that I need a place to live. I need to find a job. And they keep seeming to pull new requirements out of their ass, and giving me really bad advice.
I'm 100% Jewish on both sides of my family. I have no criminal record anywhere. The Right of Return is crystal clear about my right to move to Israel. But all I'm getting are unexpected reasons why I can't. I've used most of my savings. I don't know what to do.
Is this normal? And what do I do if they deny my appeal about that Japanese report? Is there any point in applying from Israel? Do they even want a middle-aged divorced guy who doesn't yet speak Hebrew? I teach university, and I think I'll find a job fairly easily in Israel, even if it's not necessarily my dream job. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I'm really good with languages - I'll learn Hebrew pretty quickly, but I don't speak it yet. I can't stay in AirBnBs without a job for another three months. I simply don't know what to do anymore.
Thank you for any advice you might have.