The court in Moscow postponed for another two months the continuation of the trial against the Jewish Agency in Russia. The announcement of the postponement was received after yesterday (Wednesday) the legal proceedings were supposed to resume, but the court building was unexpectedly evacuated due to a bomb warning before the hearing began.
After the previous discussion, optimism increased in Israel, and a political official who spoke to "Israel Today" estimated that the crisis is getting closer to a solution.
However, since then circumstances have changed in a way that is not directly related to the agency, but may affect Russian policy towards it: Russia suffered a series of military setbacks in Ukraine, and President Putin announced a call-up of reserves that led to a mass exodus from the country.
The Jewish Agency building, in 2021, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Against the background of these developments, the decision to postpone the procedure for two additional months "to allow the agency to implement corrections in its activities in accordance with the requirements of the Russian Ministry of Justice", is seen in Israel as a reasonable result.
The fear was that following Moscow's desire to prevent the departure of citizens trying to avoid being drafted into the army, the authorities would weigh their hand on the agency's activities.
However, Israel Hayom has learned that the Jewish Agency in Russia has already reduced its activities following the tensions with the authorities.
These steps, which are defined by the agency as "reorganization", were not made following a demand received from Moscow but at the agency's initiative, with the aim of softening Russian opposition to its activities.
Among other things, some of the agency's representatives in Russia were sent on vacation and some branches of the organization were even closed, at least temporarily.
Aeroflot.
The airline's flights to Israel have been suspended, photo: AFP
The number of flights to Russia were limited
In recent months, Russia has piled up indirect difficulties on the departure of Jews from its territory, mainly by limiting the number of flights between Moscow and Tel Aviv. This is not a measure specifically designed to make it difficult for Jews, but part of a broader policy aimed at making it difficult for citizens to leave the country due to the war in Ukraine and the conscription that it announced Putin.
As of today, there are four weekly El Al flights to Russia, in which a little over a thousand tickets are available.
Every month, 2,000 tickets are booked on these flights for new immigrants who hold immigration visas.
The national airline of Russia, Aeroflot, which held most of the market and operated a daily flight to Israel, stopped flying to Israel.
As a result of the small number of flights, they are full to capacity, and the ticket prices can reach many thousands of shekels - and these tickets after a wait that can last for weeks.
Israel asked Russia to increase the number of El Al flights and also to allow Israel Air to launch a route to the country, but its requests on the subject were rejected several times.
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