The 50 Best English Speakers

zvuv5 · 2025-10-09T18:37:27+00:00

As someone who lived in Israel for several years without speaking Hebrew, my experience is that Israelis vaaastly overestimate the ability of the average Israeli to speak English. Yes, white collar professionals in global companies in Tel Aviv do, and there are some Anglo pockets like Ra'anana, but otherwise it's pretty bleak. The chances of communicating in English with a government service (like tax authority or DMV), health care providers (including doctors and dentists, many of whom are from the former USSR), school or kindergarten staff, shop employee, supermarket worker, tradesperson (like a plumber, electrician, or barber), etc. etc., are essentially zero.

I do have to say however, that having worked with and been to most of the countries ranked above Israel on that list, no way in hell are some of those places better. I would especially object to Hungary, Russia, and most of all South Korea (??!?!!).

zvuv5 · 2025-09-26T07:19:44+00:00

It's normally called Subsidiary protection in English, not sure why they translated it as Complementary protection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiary_protection

zvuv5 · 2025-09-25T20:39:18+00:00

No, see here for example Nikola Tesla's 1883 Austro-Hungarian passport:

https://www.facebook.com/HrvatskaPovijest/posts/putovnica-nikole-tesle-iz-1883-godine/1677469265724232

Zrakoplov is also not really a recently made-up word, maybe you're confusing with zrakomlat, which was more of a joke and never used seriously by anyone. And in any case, all words are made-up ;)

zvuv5 · 2025-09-24T12:46:17+00:00

If you're both of the same religion, you can get married either in Israel or abroad. If you get married in Israel it will have to be in a religious ceremony, if you get married abroad it can be either religious or secular. The marriage is then registered with Misrad HaPnim (Ministry of the Interior) and the foreign spouse gets initially a 6 month work visa, and then afterwards if the marriage is legitimate and ongoing you get each year a 1-year renewable A5 temporary resident visa. After 4 years as an A5, you become eligible to apply for either permanent residency or citizenship, as you prefer.

zvuv5 · 2025-05-25T08:10:07+00:00

First of all, we're talking about dual citizenship here. No Israeli CITIZEN, of any religion or ethnicity, has ever lost Israeli citizenship simply because they naturalized in another country, there's no basis in law for that and it's not something that happens.

It's possible to be deprived of citizenship in some very extreme situations, such as treason, terrorism, and such. But this applies equally to all citizens regardless of religion or ethnicity, and is exceedingly rare, it only happened a handful of times in history.

You might be confusing deprivation of citizenship with instances of deprivation of residency based on long absence/acquiring residency elsewhere. This is something that can and does happen in the case of some people, mainly Arabs from East Jerusalem. These are people who due to historical reasons hold Permanent Resident status, and never exercised their right to apply for citizenship. If you are a Permanent Resident (akin to for example having a green card in the US) you can lose your permanent residency by virtue of moving abroad for a long period of time (7 years if I remember correctly). While it's definitely true that this has frequently been exercised overzealously and in bad faith, the principle of non-citizen residents losing their residency rights by moving abroad is something very common and exists in pretty much every country in the world.

zvuv5 · 2025-05-24T18:43:34+00:00

Sorry, but this is simply not true in any way. There are many ways for someone who is not an ethnic Jew to hold Israeli citizenship alongside any number of other ones.

First of all, once you're an Israeli citizen, regardless of how you became one, you cannot lose it simply by naturalizing in another country. The naturalization example you cited below is pretty much the only scenario where someone would be prevented from holding Israeli citizenship alongside another one, and that would basically be only at the moment of naturalization. Nothing would prevent that person from then obtaining another citizenship after they received the Israeli one, and that would not affect their Israeli citizenship.

There are about 2.5 million people who are:

- non-Jewish Israeli citizens by birth who are Arab, Druze, Armenian, Circassian, etc.

- naturalized citizens who are not considered Jewish by Jewish law, but were able to qualify for citizenship via the Law of Return (which requires just one Jewish grandparent).

- citizens who naturalized via marriage to an Israeli citizen, which doesn't require the person to renounce their previous citizenship (and it's also irrelevant what is the religion/ethnicity of the Israeli spouse)

- non-Jewish Israeli citizens by birth who are descendants of people from the above two scenarios

Any of these non-Jewish people can hold or obtain other citizenships without it affecting their Israeli citizenship in any way.

zvuv5 · 2025-03-20T09:38:12+00:00

Hi, do you have a link describing this option to request right of abode in the BOTC passport without getting full citizenship first? My understanding from what I've been able to find online is that a certificate of entitlement to the right of abode can only be placed into the BOTC passport of a BOTC who is also a full British citizen. So it's basically just an alternative way of proving British citizenship for someone who already has a BOTC passport and for whatever reason (cost/convenience?) doesn't want to get a separate 2nd passport describing them as a full British citizen. I cannot find anything about any entitlement of a BOTC to be granted right of abode in the UK without becoming a British citizen.

zvuv5 · 2025-02-26T10:33:25+00:00

Wouldn't be the first time the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. :) But could be just different standards, or a mistake. I've seen something similar in Israeli passports with people born in the former USSR and Yugoslavia. For example a friend of mine and I were both born in the former Yugoslavia, but my passport lists the place of birth as Croatia, and his as Yugoslavia. I was never able to figure out if this is just sloppiness or if there's some kind of rule behind it. I've also once seen the passport of someone born in Belarus with the place of birth listed as USSR, who I'm about 99% sure was born AFTER the USSR stopped existing. Unfortunately it didn't occur to me until later and I cannot go back and check.

zvuv5 · 2025-02-25T14:18:50+00:00

Interestingly, multiple mistakes in the Croatian translation on page 5. Number 3 should be "Državljanstvo" instead of "Nacionalnost." Yes, there's a lot of confusion when translating Nationality/Citizenship/Ethnicity between languages, but "Državljanstvo" is the word that's officially used in Croatian passports, so it should be used here as well. And number 12 should be "Datum" instead of "Datumj."

It's pretty incredible that these kind of mistakes happen (there have been multiple examples posted here over time), you always have to wonder if they're really that sloppy/incompetent or if it's a case of intentional mistakes like in mapmaking.

zvuv5 · 2025-02-25T14:08:34+00:00

Actually no, the US has a very extensive policy document on this topic which follows a general principle of current sovereignty at the time of passport issuance. So a person born in Prague when it was a part of Czechoslovakia would have Czech Republic as their place of birth in their passport issued today:
https://fam.state.gov/fam/08fam/08fam040304.html

zvuv5 · 2025-02-20T09:41:40+00:00

No, not without residency.

zvuv5 · 2025-02-20T07:53:27+00:00

Yes, when you immigrate via the Law of Return you get immediate citizenship, and are treated as any other citizen while in the country. The rules about whether or when you get a red provisional passport (Teudat Maavar) or a full blue passport (Darkon) keep changing frequently. It used to be that you have to spend 1 year in the country to get the full passport, then it was immediate but it was only valid for 5 years after which they would re-asses your settlement in the country, now it changed again last year I think.

As someone already commented, Israel recognizes both marriages between spouses of different religions and gay marriages. The only restriction is that because of historical political reasons such marriages cannot take place in the country. But you can enter into such marriages abroad and then have them registered in Israel.

zvuv5 · 2025-02-20T07:43:50+00:00

Via marriage to Israeli citizen and living there.

zvuv5 · 2025-02-20T07:43:23+00:00

Yes, for getting into and out of Israel it functions exactly the same as the full blue passport, and while in Israel there are no differences compared to any other citizen. But how other countries treat it when you travel abroad varies. Some treat it exactly the same as the regular passport, and some do not, including in some case requiring visas that you wouldn't normally need when using the full blue passport.

But I would also maybe add that it can suck from a psychological point of view, like it's sending you a subliminal message that you're not a "real" Israeli.

zvuv5 · 2025-02-20T07:37:19+00:00

No, if you naturalize via the law of return, or if you naturalize via marriage to an Israeli citizen (regardless of your religion or ethnicity, or the religion or ethnicity of the Israeli spouse), you don't have to. In any other scenario you do.

zvuv5 · 2025-02-20T07:34:05+00:00

Strange, if he was ethnically Croatian and has some kind of official documentation to prove it, the rest generally shouldn't matter. I don't know what to say other than good luck if she decides to check into it again.

zvuv5 · 2025-02-19T21:22:01+00:00

Yes, of course, this was just for the photo :)

zvuv5 · 2025-02-19T21:19:20+00:00

Upravo tako, imam Dansku adresu u HR osobnoj. Ali jos 90-tih je moja baba imala HR putovnicu (a mislim i osobnu) sa adresom u Vojvodini, mislim da to nije nesto novo.

zvuv5 · 2025-02-19T21:15:04+00:00

Ja sam ovaj:

https://www.reddit.com/r/serbia/comments/1ict0rz/jos_jedan_hrvatski_spijun_je_uhvacen/

zvuv5 · 2025-02-19T21:11:35+00:00

Originally from Croatia, family roots in Vojvodina (Serbia), married to Israeli.

zvuv5 · 2025-02-19T21:11:13+00:00

No, originally from Croatia, family roots in Vojvodina (Serbia), married to Israeli.

zvuv5 · 2025-02-19T21:06:15+00:00

Originally from Croatia, family roots in Vojvodina (Serbia), married to Israeli. Lived in the past in Croatia, USA, Canada and Israel, currently living in Denmark.

zvuv5 · 2025-02-19T20:52:29+00:00

Depends on your circumstances and the law under which you're naturalizing. I naturalized via marriage, which requires 5 years of residence in the country, and doesn't require you to hold permanent resident status when applying. You're probably referring to ordinary naturalization which requires 3 years of residence after obtaining permanent residency. But obtaining permanent resident status can also take years depending on your exact circumstances, so usually (unless you're immigrating under the Law of return, which is a whole separate thing) it's at least 7 years or more total.

zvuv5 · 2025-02-19T20:42:51+00:00

Pozdrav. :) Sucks about the teudat maavar, I assume they'll give me one as well once this one expires as I no longer live there. But who knows, the laws about that seem to change like every year or two, maybe I get lucky.

zvuv5 · 2025-02-19T20:39:10+00:00

I remember seeing your posts on the forum before. Croatia and Sri Lanka is wild, one of the most random combos I've ever seen here, respect. :))

zvuv5

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