Renouncing Israeli Citizenship Isn't That Easy
- James Ron
- Nov 18
- 3 min read
A consular visit, a stuck door, and trying to say goodbye.
Azimuth and the War
The recent war in Gaza — and my ongoing work on a memoir, tentatively titled Azimuth — pushed me to try and act on something I’ve considered for decades: formally ending my relationship with the State of Israel.
Azimuth (still looking for representation 😃) is about my family’s immigration to Israel in the late 1970s, when I was just nine; my immersion in the Israeli school system and youth movements; my military service in the mid-1980s; and the slow arc that led me to become a Human Rights Watch researcher in the West Bank and Gaza.
This blog, like the memoir, is part of a long reckoning with identity, belonging, and responsibility.
The Consulate Visit
I flew to Chicago with my partner to visit the Israeli Consulate to the Midwest and start the renunciation process. We stayed overnight with kind friends, grabbed a few meals, and took some taxis — $500 all in. It felt momentous, symbolic, and surprisingly bureaucratic.
The consulate’s security guard was friendly and young. After checking my passport, he suddenly asked, “What’s your military ID number?” I blurted it out automatically without thinking. He then asked, “Which unit were you in?”
Why would this matter? I’m nearly 59. Still, I heard myself answer: “Paratroops. Airborne demolition.” And then, absurdly, I did the same to him: “What unit were you in?”
Old reflexes die hard — hierarchy, status, and the military, all encoded long ago.
The Consular Official
The clerk behind the glass was kind, curious, and — at first — warm. She asked why I wanted to renounce my citizenship. I gave a half-truth: “Downsizing. Simplifying. Selling my house.”
She smiled. “You’re not selling your citizenship, are you?”
“No,” I laughed. “Not quite.”
She glanced at her screen and frowned. “You never registered your marriage or your divorce. That’s a problem. You’ll need to submit both, with apostilles.”
I protested: “The marriage was in the U.S. My ex isn’t even Israeli.”
She sighed. “That’s the law. We need the paperwork.”
I pled, wheedled, joked. Surely she could give me a pass?
She looked pained. “I can’t.”
Israeli Citizenship: “Why Would You Want to Leave Us?”
While the process halted, she got chatty. “Why would you want to leave us?” There was no malice — just genuine bewilderment.
I hesitated. “The war,” I said.
She looked confused. “Which war?”
“The one in Gaza.”
She seemed stunned. “Really? Most people coming through here want to enlist.”
I said nothing. The warmth in her voice cooled. The moment passed. We weren’t on the same side anymore. Family time was over.
“Hotel California”
When I stood to leave, the door jammed. I couldn’t open it. “You’ll have to wait,” she said. “Security is checking someone on the other side.”
I laughed. “It’s a metaphor, right? You can’t leave Israel that easily. It's like Hotel California.”
You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
Sociology of a Cult-Like State
As a sociologist, I couldn’t help theorizing. Israel isn’t a literal cult, but some of its mechanisms are cult-like, especially for its Jewish citizens:
Easy entry for Jews, hard exit for anyone.
Binding rituals — youth groups, military service, reserve duty.
Acts that generate guilt and complicity, making departure feel like betrayal.
Self-censorship and emotional manipulation, encouraging shame when questioning the system.
Ordinary language that encodes sacred hierarchy: Aliyah (“ascent”), Yerida (“descent”), Ha’Aretz (“The Land”), Galut (“Exile”).
Israel’s success lies in how deeply it gets under your skin — even when you want out.
So What Now?
Do I really want to chase down apostilles and email my ex about bureaucratic papers for a divorce finalized seven years ago?
Do I want to prove to a government I no longer believe in that my “center of life” is elsewhere?
A friend said, “You can decide not to belong without the paperwork.”
Maybe they’re right.
Still, it would be nice to close the door properly, at least in my own mind.
An earlier version of this post appeared on Medium.
For a related post, see Shame: A Letter to my Children.
About James Ron
James Ron is an author and social scientist whose career has spanned military service, human rights investigations, journalism, and university teaching. He is working on a memoir, Azimuth, which reflects on a life lived at the intersection of political violence, moral responsibility, exile, and personal transformation.
Learn more at www.jamesron.com | www.jamesron.org | www.jamesron.net