After initially denying Nobuki Sugihara and his family an entry visa over missing COVID-19 documents, Israel reversed course on Friday morning, and granted them entry to attend a ceremony naming a square in Yerushalayim after the Japanese diplomat who saved thousands of Jews from the Nazis.
Nobuki Sugihara, the son of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul in Kovna who saved thousands of Jews during WWII, was initially denied entry to Israel to participate in the naming of Chiune Sugihara Square at the intersection of Kolitz Road and Panama Street in the Ir Ganim neighborhood in Yerushalayim, the Times of Israel reported.
The ceremony, organized by the municipality, is slated to take place on October 11 at 4:00 pm, and will be attended by Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion and Japan’s ambassador to Israel Koichi Aiboshi. A separate Jewish National Fund ceremony to inaugurate a garden in Sugihara’s name has been postponed until his son can enter the country.
Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat stationed in Kovna (Kaunas), Lithuania, who issued thousands of transit visas which enabled Jews to escape the onslaught of the Nazis by travelling to Vladivostok and then Japan, with many of them spending the remainder of the war in Shanghai, China. Some of the refugees saved through these visas included the Mirrer Yeshiva and some talmidim of Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin.
Sugihara’s deeds were recognized in 1984 by Israel, which bestowed upon him the title of Righteous Among the Nations, and posthumously by Japan, in 2000.
Nobuki Sugihara applied at the Israeli embassy in Brussles for an entrance visa on September 28, but received a letter rejecting his application since it was missing some of the required documentation.
“I sent him all the documents, except two things,” Sugihara said. “One is where I would quarantine in case I am infected” as well as documentation of health insurance.
Sugihara said he has no friends or family in Israel with who he can quarantine, and insisted it was the responsibility of the municipality to take care of these details.
“The host of the ceremony should apply for us,” said Sugihara. He stated that he believed that the city would rather not have him at the ceremony.
“The intention was just to use me to tell survivors and families to gather for the ceremony,” he said. “Because if I say I’m coming, people will come. I am not coming, people will not come to the ceremony.”
Four other family members and friends — Esin Ayirtman, Haruka Sugihara, Oliver Van Loo, and Philippe Bergonzo — all of whom received two COVID-19 shots and submitted their vaccination papers, have also been rejected.
Nobuki Sugihara expressed his dismay at the irony that Israel is keeping him away from the ceremony because of a couple of missing documents.
“You know my father issued a transit visa to Japan for anyone who requested, no matter if they have insurance, no matter if they have a place to stay in Japan,” he said.
Some of the bureaucrats initially failed to see the the importance of having the son of the heroic diplomat attend the event, asking if he has a first-degree relative in the country, a key criterion for entry for a standard traveler.
Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked personally intervened last Thursday to secure an entry visa for Mr. Sugihara, instructing officials in her ministry to do whatever necessary to allow Mr. Sugihara and the four other family members and friends to enter Israel.
“Sugihara is one of the Righteous Among the Nations who saved thousands of Jews,” Shaked told The Times of Israel.
In the end, Eyal Siso — who sits on the interagency exceptions committee set up to handle appeals to the COVID-19 restrictions — signed off on the entry documents.
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October 11, 2021 at 05:49AM
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