Convert gets Israeli citizenship following five-year bureaucratic battle
David Ben Moshe’s five-year bureaucratic battle with Israel’s Interior Ministry — which at one point included a hunger strike — ended on Thursday as the former Baltimore resident received his long-sought Israeli citizenship.
David Ben Moshe displays his certificate of immigration on Jan. 12, 2023. Photo courtesy David Ben Moshe
“I plan on having a glass of wine with my wife from a bottle we’ve been saving for a few years now for this occasion,” Ben Moshe, 35, told the Tazpit Press Service.
“It means a few things. First and foremost, it’s a weight off my shoulders,” he said. “My family and I are so much less stressed now that I don’t have to worry about applying for things. I’m a full, normal citizen of the state of Israel, just like my wife and kids.”
Ben Moshe — a writer, speaker and fitness and life coach now married with two children — lives in Beersheva (“the greatest city in Israel,” he emphasises) but took an unusual path to get there.
Born David Bonett and raised as a Christian, he fell into the Baltimore drug trade. By the age of 21, he was already in prison, serving a 30-month sentence for drugs and weapons violations.
“About a year into my sentence, I saw someone studying Torah, so I asked him a question. That question led to more questions until I decided that Judaism was right for me,” Ben Moshe told TPS. After leaving prison in 2012, he underwent an Orthodox conversion process and completed a college degree.
“I did a Birthright trip in 2015. I felt connected to the country and knew that one day I would live here,” he told TPS. In 2017, he returned to continue his Jewish studies in Jerusalem. After marrying his wife, Tamar, who was born and raised in Israel, Ben Moshe began the process of becoming an Israeli citizen.
Battling the Interior Ministry
“It was May of 2018 when the initial application for aliyah [immigration] was first filed,” he recalled.
The process took five years.
“It was a Kafkaesque battle with the bureaucracy,” he said.
“They said my conversion was unacceptable when it had already been accepted by the rabbinate for my wedding,” he told TPS. “I was unable to register as being married to my wife because she was already registered as married to me. The ministry refused to respond to my applications, appeals and to the ombudsman at all, even though there were legally mandated time frames.”
Then there was Ben Moshe’s hunger strike in January 2022.
“Once the conversion was ironed out, I was told there would be a further waiting period because of my conviction, but they wouldn’t say how long. They got back to me only because I started a hunger strike. They got back to me eight days into it.”
For now, Ben Moshe says he plans to celebrate with family and friends in Beersheva and Jerusalem. He said he also intends to celebrate in Baltimore, where he plans to give talks on black-Jewish relations, racism and antisemitism, though no dates are yet scheduled.
Ben Moshe also told TPS he intends to write a book “about my journey from prison to today,” and how the bureaucratic battle changed him.
“I learned the value of community. It’s easy to think you need to stand up for yourself and get things done. But this was only possible because I had support from so many members of my community,” he said.
“I’ve missed the last five elections, having no say. In the next elections, I’ll be able to vote. I’m officially part of the state. I’m a Zionist, and I believe in fighting for Israel as a Jewish state. Now I’m a full member in that project.”
David ben-Moshe is to be congratulated and welcomed as a brother; the bureaucracy needs to be condemned.