"Principal called police three times, it could be life threatening"

The girls in Jerusalem, the legal representation of Rabbi Ovadia and also: the queues at the Ministry of the Interior and Ben Gurion Airport, the cancellation of visas to the United States and for which community of illegal residents will open an operation tomorrow in which anyone who leaves Israel voluntarily will receive $ 5,000.

The director general of the Population and Immigration Authority talks about everything

Liat Ron

30/06/2022

Thursday, 30 June 2022, 10:48 Updated: 14:52

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"I am a person, a Jew, an Israeli, and a public servant, in exactly this order" (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Name

: Adv. Tomer Moskowitz, 58, CEO of the Population and Immigration Authority.

: I am a person, a Jew, an Israeli, and a public servant, in exactly that order.

I have thorns instead of sitting on it and when I see people who have been working in the same place for 30 years, I do not understand how they do it.

I am impatient not to be able to sit in meetings of more than half an hour and make up for it with quick absorption.

Loves teamwork, does not make decisions alone and is very rebellious.

: On my mother's side, I am the ninth generation in the country.

Grandma was born here and Grandpa in Ukraine.

One of his sisters was the mother of Rehavam Zeevi, Gandhi and the other sister was the mother of Mike Harari, who founded the Caesarea unit at the institution.

They lived on the border of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, mother studied nursing and was a head nurse at a milk drop.

The origins of Dad's family, the Satmar followers' family, are from Romania, but their mentality was Hungarian and they spoke the language.

Grandpa was a butcher and a cantor and Dad and his brother were born there.

During the war they were in an deportation area, without a ghetto or extermination camps, but he had trouble with a German officer on a train.

: He and his brother immigrated to Israel alone at the age of 12 in illegal immigration, they were exiled to Cyprus and came to Israel after the establishment of the state.

He adapted to an optimistic vision and with it a powerful determination that helped him overcome any difficulty.

His parents came to the Talpiot transit camp in the 1950s and from there moved to a 30-square-meter apartment in Katamonim, making a living from a small grocery store.

He studied at the "Dear Institution" and left at the age of 17, when his grandfather fell ill, enlisted in the IDF and was the third of Bahad 1, the only officer with a skullcap on his head.

He was always independent, worked in apartment brokerage, invented patents, was a franchisee of Strauss in Jerusalem and opened a department store.

At the age of 45, he sold the store, completed his matriculation and studied geography and Jewish thought at the Hebrew University and appraisal at the Technion's branch.

When he repeatedly failed the bureau's tests, he submitted to the High Court and received a ruling for a re-examination of the test. It was found that he had to pass it, he received compensation and started working as an appraiser.

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"I had dreams of becoming secretary of government, which could still happen" (Photo: Reuven Castro)

My childhood

: I grew up on the border of old Katamon and Givat Shaul in Jerusalem, four children in a three-room house, the boys slept in one room and my sister on the balcony.

We always said we were middle class, but there were also not-so-simple times, we realized that money is something in short supply and on vacations we always worked with Dad.

I studied at the "Example for Boys" school and from there I moved to the "Nativ Meir" yeshiva, which is considered a leading educational institution, and I studied biology.

I did not have a clear direction then.

I had dreams of being a government secretary, which could still happen, and driving a garbage truck.

I guided in Bnei Akiva and there I met my wife, Rabbi Moti Alon, who sanctified us.

I have a very warm corner in my heart for him.

I had never encountered such a charismatic person and at the time we had not heard of anything inappropriate in his behavior.

The fact that I try to be a Torah and mitzvah keeper is a lot thanks to him and therefore I am very saddened by what happened.

"When I was thinking of studying medicine, all the doctors I consulted said I should not, so I signed up for the trial" (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Ronit

: My wife, works at Herzog College for teacher training in Alon Shvut.

We met at the age of ten in Bnei Akiva, she jumped a grade and was in my yearbook.

I always wanted to be her friend and when I was discharged from the army a place became available in her heart for me, and we got married within two weeks.

She was 22 and I was 23. We have been married for 35 years, we have six children and seven grandchildren.

After postponing service and studies at the "Rabbi Center", I enlisted in the Golani, I was in a medic course and when I thought of studying medicine, all the doctors I consulted said I should not, so I signed up for law by default and specialized with Judge Menachem Alon, a special and exceptional person.

In my year with him I made 400 court appearances and then I moved to the Glass-Feinstein-Bar Sela office.

We represented the Israel Antiquities Authority, Shas and I personally represented Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and I had many hours with him.

: After eight and a half years, at the age of 38, a tender was opened for the legal advisor at the Ministry of Labor and Welfare.

When I was asked in an interview if I was not too young for the job, I replied that I would work on it every day for a while, and from there I became the legal adviser to the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor under Ehud Olmert. It certainly did not work out.

I met the evacuees' representative who was a director in the Ministry of Defense and he asked me to apply for the company's management.

"Next year we will no longer have to sit in front of an official who will ask us questions and take fingerprints" (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Enforcement and Collection Authority

: I stamped the slogan there, that we are the largest charity organization in the State of Israel.

When you bring money to a woman who does not receive alimony, to a landlord who has not received payments and come to a debt settlement is a favor.

We passed the Insolvency Law.

Execution deals with close to 750,000 debtors, 10% of whom are serial intricacies, evading assets and income.

You have to be tough with them.

At least half of them are the ones who fell in good faith, with the goal being to make them beneficial to society.

The vast majority of debtors are those who have debts, but they are not incapable - and here should be effective.

: I have been in office for ten months, during which I went through three crises.

What was important to the interior minister was that we would have control and that control would be abroad and not in the country, because we did not want the pictures of 1,000 refused waiting hours, like that terrible day. Today we are in a completely different place and every month we make an ad hoc decision, subordinate To

the situation there. And now the terrible congestion.

: There is a crisis of shortage of workers at airports around the world, an amazing phenomenon that everything is being done to overcome.

Within this array, we, who are solely responsible for border control, make every effort to provide a maximum service experience.

In operating the airports there is a complex of bodies and everyone does their best.

: Population bureaus worked during the Corona period, but people did not come and we are in serious trouble.

We did an experiment at the bureau in Bnei Brak, where there was no need to make an appointment and the bureau director called the police three times, it could be life threatening.

There are holes in the queues of those who do not come, but there are no holes in the work that does not stop.

In January there were 120,000 queues, and in May 230,000, an increase of more than one hundred percent, and that is before we absorbed one hundred new employees.

Issuance of a passport requires entry into the 'spring' system of the Population Manager and only civil servants are allowed to enter it.

I was thinking about setting up passport complexes, but getting soldiers into such civilian action is problematic.

It should be understood, the first stop of the biometric passport is at the bureau, the second stop at the factory in the center of the country, where the passport is printed with a chip with personal details.

Instead of four working days, we got to five weeks.

Then we opened the bureau near the Ayalon Mall which does over a thousand queues a day.

So far we have done everything by virtue of the authority of the Minister.

We intend to introduce two more compensation processes.

People who came to the bureau, paid a fee and the passport did not arrive, will receive a refund.

Anyone who has made a temporary passport and will make a permanent passport will receive a discount on the fee.

: The story is over.

The non-biometric IDs were due to expire in August and were automatically extended to 2024. What will happen in those two years?

Next year we will no longer have to sit in front of an official who will ask us questions and take fingerprints.

Today one person does it in front of one customer.

From next year everything will be done automatically.

It does not happen now, when there is such pressure, because it is a very complex event.

Our technology manager has been abroad several times already, the prototype of the automatic device will come here and go through programming and in the end there will be one employee who will oversee ten machines.

"We have to pay people to leave, it's ultimately the cheapest solution" (Photo: Reuven Castro)

US Visa Cancellation

: My Vice President, Gil Bringer, an insanely talented guy, has taken on this task. His project.

: Most of them entered as tourists, Eritreans, and Sudanese.

We are working on a voluntary exit operation, to a country of nationals staying here with whom we are promoting an arrangement and its details will be published in the near future.

On 1.7 (today, LR), a voluntary exit campaign begins for Filipino citizens staying in Israel with children illegally, the operation is limited to the end of November and allows for a $ 5,000 grant to be distributed over a year, in cooperation with the Philippine government and embassy.

As annoying as it is, I think we have to pay people to leave, it's ultimately the cheapest solution.

"I will not enter politics" (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Leisure:

Loves to read, especially reference books.

Ronit and I love to walk and run she ran a half marathon and I am between 4 and 5 km and for the last two and a half years we study a Gemara page every day, even at twelve at night, we did not miss a single page.

: I want to be in the public service and run a public body The size of the population authority depends on what becomes available. I will not enter politics.

• Of money

Tags

• Population and Immigration Authority

• Philippines

• Illegal stays

• work immigrants