Poland's foreign ministry said Thursday that the European Union nation will have no ambassador in Israel for the time being, bringing the mission level down to that of Israel's mission in Poland.

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The traditionally sensitive bilateral relations soured in the summer after Poland adopted legislation seen as banning claims for restitution of some seized property, including that of Holocaust victims. Israel protested the decision.

The ministry decided then that Poland's ambassador, Marek Magierowski, was not to return to his Tel Aviv post after vacation. He has since been appointed to Washington.

Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Lukasz Jasina told The Associated Press that "there are no plans at the moment to propose a new person for the position of ambassador" in Tel Aviv.

Israel's mission to Poland is only at the charge d'affaires level, following earlier tensions, but the diplomat, Tal Ben-Ari Yaalon, was recalled to Israel during the summer spat. She is expected to return to Warsaw.

Bilateral relations, going back to 1948, were reestablished in 1990 – following the communist era – and have gone through various phases, recently souring after Poland adopted an administrative law setting a deadline on claims for restitution of seized real estate. 

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The question on everyone's mind in Poland this week was what prompted Israel's Foreign Minister Yair Lapid to react in such a critical manner to their government's decision to put a statute of limitations on property claims that date back more than 30 years.

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Poles of all walks of life – politicians, academics, jurists, journalists, supporters of President Andrzej Duda and his opponents, and even members of the local Jewish community – wondered why Lapid went on a rant about Poland, accusing it of antisemitism and even anti-democracy.

In most Israeli media outlets, the Polish ruling was portrayed as a deeply antisemitic move, one that attempted to erase the memory of the Holocaust and deny survivors and their descendants the opportunity to reclaim property that was confiscated during the war.

Poland reacted with outrage at the accusations. Some might say, rightfully so, for, in reality, the situation is much more complex than the simplistic way the restitution law was made out to be by the Israeli media and Lapid.

"Amendments to the law have nothing to do with the distinction between Jews and non-Jews," said Jakub Kumoch, head of the International Policy Bureau of the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland. "They don't discriminate against anyone or prevent Holocaust victims from bringing about justice.

"Whoever distorts these laws and misrepresents them is acting out of prejudice and ignorance, and in my opinion, is no better than the antisemites who always use the Jews as scapegoats. Connecting the law to the tragedy of the Holocaust is an idea that was born in Lapid's mind, even though the two are completely unrelated."

Kumoch explained: Two dictatorial regimes confiscated property from Polish citizens – Poles, Jews and other minorities – in the 20th century: the Nazi and the communist regimes.

In terms of confiscating property, the communist regime took much more than the Nazis, and did not care whether the owners were Jewish, Poles or members of any other group.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Poland renounced communism, began a process of reinstating stolen property to their rightful owners. All they had to do was arrive at an administrative court, prove that their home or land was confiscated by the communists, and they would receive it back. Most of the applicants were not even Jewish.

"The privatization process was chaotic and disorderly and often led to corruption," Kumoch continued.

Applicants who had connections in the administrative court received their property back immediately; others were turned away time and again. Jewish survivors and their descendants, in particular, had a hard time. In most cases, they no longer lived in Poland and had to turn to unreliable real estate agencies."

These companies, in turn, purchased the rights to these properties from the helpless owners for a fraction of their actual value.

Anyone who did manage to get their property back ran into another problem. Now, although the property was registered in their name, they had no right to remove the current tenants, who were moved into the apartment by the communist government legally.

According to Kumoch, this created an entirely new branch of crime: the same real estate companies – Polish or foreign – that acquired the property rights from the real heirs, turned to gangs that threatened the tenants and forced them to leave. The matter was so widespread that such criminals got a special nickname - "apartment cleaners."

"I would like to point out that no one is blaming the Jews, Heaven forbid, or anyone else for looking to get their property back," Kumoch said.

"This is the natural part of the transition from communism to a free market, but it created a clash between two sides that are both in the right.

"Whoever is looking to reclaim their stolen property is right. As are those who were placed to live in a house by the communist regime, and have lived there for decades, because they had the right to. Sometimes, by the way, the people who were placed to live in confiscated houses were Jews who survived the Holocaust."

The shortcomings of the reprivatization process have led to countless appeals against the administrative court's decisions, and tenants were never sure if a ruling made by the court was final and would not be overturned.

And since millions have resettled after the war, Kumoch estimates that hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens, especially in big cities, live in fear and uncertainty that tomorrow someone might show up at their door with a paper declaring that the communist regime's decision to grant them their apartment is annulled.

One of the consequences of this, naturally, is that urban development halted, Kumoch explained. What entrepreneur would invest in an area where the ownership of a property is uncertain?

All of these problems have created a movement that demanded the end of the restoration process.

"This movement has nothing to do with the conservative right-wing party that is currently in power," Kumoch noted. "Most of its activists come from the urban movement circles, and its leader, Jan Spiewak, is a Jew. He is the grandson of Bialystok ghetto fighter and well-known Holocaust historian Szymon Datner.

"He was the one who uncovered the so-called "mafia of reprivatization" in Warsaw and became the first to support President Duda's decision to approve the law.

"After 40 to 50 thousand people lost their apartments (not to Holocaust survivors or their descendants, but to real estate agencies and the mafia), the matter was brought before the Polish Constitutional Tribunal, and in 2015 it passed a law that would acquire the parliament to set a statute of limitations.

"The assumption was that in the decades that passed since the end of communism in Poland, there had already been enough time for property restitution claims, and it was now possible to provide certainty and security to families that moved into them after the war. And that is exactly what happened – the parliament implemented the ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal."

Kumoch's claim is supported by the results of the vote in the Polish parliament. It might come as a surprise to critics in Israel, who blame Duda's leading party for the "antisemitic ruling," but no one in the parliament opposed the law.

Even the Opposition, which takes every opportunity to accuse the leading party of steering away from democracy, did not question it when it came to the reinstitution law.

"Being unfairly accused of antisemitism is especially hurtful, for me as well, as a grandson of a Polish man who fought the Nazis and was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo," Komuch said.

"Lapid makes it seem as if there are tens of thousands of descendants of Holocaust survivors who have documents attesting that their property was stolen and that Poland is denying them their rights. These are false claims.

"But more importantly, the law does not limit the original owners, or their descendants, from reclaiming their property, no matter their nationality. Such an individual can file a claim at an ordinary civil court and receive compensation from the state. We are not running away from responsibility for deeds committed by Poles during the Holocaust."

Being that Kumoch is a diplomat, one might think that his judgment is biased. However, surprisingly, many Poles agree with him.

Professor Ewa Letowska is a well-known Polish lawyer affiliated with the left-wing camp. Between 1999 and 2002, she served as a judge at the Supreme Administrative Court of Poland and between 2002 and 2011 as a judge of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal. In 1988, she became the first person to be appointed the Ombudsman for Citizen Rights in Poland.

She completely disagrees with the notion that the Polish law has an antisemitic element, but does say that the government could have adopted a more sensitive approach.

"The law is not intended against Jews," she said. "And contrary to the current propaganda, neither does it harm Holocaust survivors.

"The decision to impose a 30-year statute of limitations was the right one, but the execution lacked in terms of legislation and sensitivity. Unfortunately, Poland did not bother to explain this [the need for the law] clearly and respectfully, and now the unclear wording of the law is being used for political games."

Letowska believes that Poland should have formulated a thorough restitution mechanism, that would include Holocaust survivors, a long time ago.

"In the 1960s, under the auspices of Western governments, including the US, reparations were paid to citizens of these countries for property left behind in Poland, and the mistake of the Polish authorities was that they never offered a strategic plan for the restitution process. It is difficult to separate the law from the general context of the restoration of Jewish property and Poland's attitude towards its past.

"Poland cannot and should not be held responsible for the crimes of Nazi Germany," she continued. "The consequences of World War II, including the question of Jewish property, were a large part of my work as ombudsman for citizen rights.

"Even then, I argued and wrote that [Poland] should have started with an accurate assessment of all property. As time went on, the possibility of returning the property to the previous owners themselves became an illusion, and the fact that it applies equally to Poles and Jews is certainly not comforting.

"A partial agreement would have been better, but at least it would have been final. Poland's mistake was the unwillingness to consider how to end the matter legally."

Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich does not view the Polish ruling as antisemitic either, but is aware of the negative consequences of stopping the return of property to rightful owners - Poles, Jews, and others.

"When I addressed the Senate, the upper house of the Polish parliament, I spoke of the importance of the commandment "Thou shalt not steal," he said. "For what the Nazi occupiers, and later the communists did, was theft, and it is a wrong that should be rectified.

"As for the Israeli foreign minister's reaction, suppose there are two friends, and there is a dispute between them over a particular matter, does that mean they should no longer be friends? All the more so, when it comes to countries."

"Israel and Poland have built a close friendship over the past 30 years. Poland supports Israel, opposes Isran and the BDS movement. Should the two countries end this friendship because they disagree on the matter of restitution?"

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As the diplomatic crisis between Israel and Poland over a new Polish law that would restrict restitution of stolen Jewish property deepens, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Paweł Jabłoński on Monday said that the country would reexamine the Holocaust education trips organized for Israeli high school students, which he alleged spread hatred of Poland.

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"Educational trips from Israel to Poland do not take place in a proper manner [and are conducted] in a way that hatred of Poland sometimes seeps into the minds of young people. We will examine the issue in depth because it is clear that the way these tours take place is not the right way," Jabłoński said.

He accused Israel of fostering "anti-Polonism," or prejudice against Poles as an ethnic group and the state of Poland and its culture, according to Polish media.

On Saturday, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed into the bill into law despite strong opposition from Israel and the United States.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a press statement on Monday reiterating US "concerns about amendments to the Code of Administrative Procedure, which President Duda signed on Aug. 14, severely restricting restitution and compensation for property wrongfully confiscated during Poland's communist era."

Blinken said, "We deeply regret the adoption of these amendments. Further, we urge the Polish government to consult with representatives of affected parties and to develop a clear, efficient, and effective legal procedure to resolve confiscated property claims and provide some measure of justice for victims.  In the absence of such a procedure, this legislation will harm all Polish citizens whose property was unjustly taken, including that of Polish Jews who were victims of the Holocaust.

Blinken said that the US strongly encouraged Duda to act on the values of freedom of expression, sanctity of contract, and mutual values and warned that the new property restitution law could "severely affect media freedom and the foreign investment climate."

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called the signing of the law "a shameful decision and disgraceful contempt for the memory of the Holocaust" and said "Poland has chosen to continue harming those who have lost everything."

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said that he had instructed Israel's charges d'affaires in Warsaw to return home immediately and the new Israeli ambassador to Poland to stay in Israel. The Israeli Foreign Ministry also said that it was recommending the Polish ambassador to Israel, who is on vacation, to not return to Israel.

Part of this article was first published by i24NEWS  

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Poland's parliament passed a law on Wednesday that would prevent former Polish property owners, including Holocaust survivors and their descendants, from regaining property expropriated by the country's communist regime.

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Israel condemned the legislation, with Foreign Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid saying it "damages both the memory of the Holocaust and the rights of its victims."

The adopted amendment to Poland's administrative law would prevent property ownership and other administrative decisions from being declared void after 30 years. It affects Jewish and non-Jewish owners who had properties seized in the communist era.

In the case of the former Jewish owners, at stake in many cases are the homes or businesses of families who were wiped out in the Holocaust and whose properties were later seized by Poland's communist-era authorities.

When communism fell in 1989, it opened up the possibility for former owners to try to regain lost properties. Some cases have made their way through the courts, but Poland has never passed a comprehensive law that would regulate restitution or compensation for seized properties.

Poland says the new legislation is a response to fraud and irregularities that have emerged in the restitution process, leading to evictions or giving real estate to property dealers in a process called "wild re-privatization."

The bill now awaits the approval of Polish President Andrej Duda, who has 21 days to sign it into law.

"The State of Israel will not compromise one bit when it comes to the memory of the Holocaust," Lapid added. "I condemn the Polish parliamentary legislation that passed today."

Citing a record of fighting Polish Holocaust revisionism, Lapid vowed to "oppose any attempt to rewrite history, as well as compromises at the expense of the Holocaust of the Jewish people and the rights of Holocaust victims."

"Poland knows what the right thing to do is: repeal the law," Lapid said.

Gideon Taylor, the chair of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, or WJRO, an advocate for property restitution, said the group was "outraged," and called the bill "equally unfair for both Jews and non-Jews."

Michael Bazyler, an expert in international law and restitution at Chapman University School of Law in California, argues that it is the wrong tool to fight the problem and that cutting off claims of former owners forever amounts to "perpetuating injustice by the communists."

"The way you stop wild re-privatization and corruption is to go against corruption," he told The Associated Press. "You don't do it by taking the claims of legitimate heirs."

Taylor, from the WJRO, also called on Duda to veto the bill and urged the Polish government to work with it to "once and for all settle the issue of private property restitution."

He argued that more than 30 years after the fall of communism, Poland was still benefitting from wrongfully acquired property.

"Property restitution is about more than money – for many Holocaust survivors and their families, a home is the last remaining physical connection to the lives they once led, to the countries where they were born, and to the towns where they grew up, before their lives were shattered," Taylor said.

In Israel, Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy decided not to reestablish the Israeli-Polish parliamentary friendship group.

"The anti-restitution law restricting property claims by victims of the Holocaust is a daylight robbery that desecrates the memory of the Holocaust," he said. "Poland's decision to pass this immoral law harms the friendship and bilateral relations between Israel and Poland."

The United States had been pressuring Poland in hopes of stopping the legislation.

"We are deeply concerned that Poland's parliament passed legislation today severely restricting the process for Holocaust survivors and their families, as well as other Jewish and non-Jewish property owners, to obtain restitution for property wrongfully confiscated during Poland's communist era," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. He urged Duda to not sign the bill into law or to refer it to Poland's constitutional tribunal.

We are troubled by legislation passed in Poland severely restricting restitution for Holocaust survivors and owners of property confiscated during the Communist era, and draft legislation that would gravely weaken media freedom. Our shared values are our mutual security.

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) August 11, 2021

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers wrote a letter to the speaker of the lower house of the Polish parliament, urging her to prevent the bill from advancing, maintaining that the almost total annihilation of Polish Jewry during the Second World War was an "issue of morality and closure."

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The draft regulations have drawn strong criticism from Israel and Jewish organizations who say the new administrative law would prevent Jewish claims for compensation or property seized during the Holocaust and the communist regime.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said the legislation will "severely damage our relations with Poland."

If adopted, the changes would prevent property ownership and other administrative decisions from being declared void after 30 years. It affects Polish, Jewish, and other property. Poland says it is a response to fraud and irregularities that have emerged in the restitution process, leading to evictions or giving real estate to property dealers.

The changes have been ordered by the country's Constitutional Court which ruled in 2015 that the current state of administrative regulations was against Poland's supreme law.

Poland's authorities insist restitution claims will still be possible through courts, regardless of the claimants' nationality or place of residence.

The amended draft now heads to the parliament's lower chamber for approval, after which it will need the signature of President Andrzej Duda, who has spoken out in support of the legislation.

Gideon Taylor, chair of operations of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, urged the lower chamber to "reject the bill in its entirety."

He said the organization encouraged Poland to "once and for all settle the issue of private property by adopting comprehensive restitution legislation."

"As the remaining Holocaust survivors get older, they deserve a measure of justice in their lifetime," Taylor said.

Before World War II, Poland was home to Europe's largest Jewish community of some 3.5 million people. Most were killed in the Holocaust under Nazi Germany's occupation and their property was confiscated. Poland's post-war communist authorities seized those properties, along with the property of non-Jewish owners in Warsaw and other cities. The end of communism in 1989 opened the door to restitution claims, most of which came from Polish residents.

The still-unresolved matter has been a constant source of bitterness and political tension between Poland and Israel.

In 2001, a draft law foreseeing compensation for seized private property was approved in parliament but vetoed by President Aleksander Kwasniewski. He claimed it violated social equality principles and would hurt Poland's economic development, implying that compensation claims would result in large payouts. He said individual claims should be made through the courts.

Poland is the only European country that has not offered any compensation for private property seized by the state in its recent history. Only the remaining communal Jewish property, like some synagogues, prayer houses, and cemeteries, mostly in disrepair, have been returned where possible or compensated for.

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Poland's Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jablonski said Monday that he hopes Israel would change its view on draft legislation that could cut off World War II restitution claims. The controversial move has sparked a bitter diplomatic row between Jerusalem and Warsaw. 

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The bill, which passed Poland's lower house of parliament last week, intends to provide greater legal certainty for current owners of pre-war properties against claims dating back to the years of the Nazi-German occupation.

However, it drew criticism from Israel as it could effectively block descendants of Jewish families from claiming properties left empty during the Holocaust. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid accused Warsaw of trying to erase the memory of the Holocaust and condemned the legislation as "immoral."

Jewish claims on the property were frozen during the Communist era and, unlike other countries in the region, Poland has never had a comprehensive law on restitution claims since the fall of Communism in 1989.

Some families who lost property have since sought restitution or compensation, but the process has been chaotic and long. In some cases, there have been fraudulent claims for restitution.

The new law, which still has to be passed by the Senate and signed by Poland's President Andrzej Duda before it comes into effect, sets a 30-year statute of limitations on such claims. 

This means that if a person bought a pre-war property in 1989 and has a specific official confirmation from that time proving their right to own it, any previous historical owners would now be excluded from contesting that right.

In an interview with Israel Hayom, Jablonski said that Poland did not expect to be accused of attempting to erase the memory of the Holocaust over the bill. 

"We knew that Israel might have concerns about the new law, that is why we passed on to them all the facts concerning the law," he said. 

"We assumed that the law would be a matter of controversy, but what surprised us was that the response was so disconnected from the facts. Lapid tried to shift focus onto the claim that Poland was erasing the memory of the Holocaust. These are ridiculous assumptions, and the law does not address the Holocaust in any way." 

Warsaw was wary about Lapid's appointment as foreign minister. In 2018, he lambasted the Polish government for proposing a controversial bill that sought to outlaw accusing Poland of crimes committed during the Holocaust.

"I think attacking Poland serves the political needs of Lapid and other politicians," Jablonski said. "I know that there are a lot of people in Israel who are extremely critical of Poland, just as there are people in Poland who are critical of Israel or are even anti-Jewish and anti-Israel. It is very tempting for politicians to escalate such conflicts to gain points. 

"We would like to remain on good terms with Israel and support it in international forums. But being attacked in such a way does not bode well with the Polish people. There is pressure from our side to change our attitudes towards Israel.

"We did not expect to find ourselves in a situation where the bill would be presented as an attempt to erase the memory of the Holocaust, as Foreign Minister Lapid tweeted. That is simply not the case."

Q: What is the purpose of the new law? 

"The main idea is to set a time limit for revoking administrative decisions. There are people in Poland who purchased properties many years ago, and they still cannot be at peace that one day their ownership will not be revoked. 

"This lack of legal certainty has been deliberated on many times, and in 2015 our Constitutional Court decided that a time frame should be set to prevent it. Therefore, they decided to limit the right to appeal to 30 years in order to avoid never-ending uncertainties for property owners.

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"There have been many cases where dubious individuals or businesses came to a Polish court and presented documents – sometimes original, sometimes forged – and claimed to represent descendants of Holocaust victims or other victims of the war, and said they were applying on behalf of people who are still alive. 

"There was one case where they claimed to represent a client who was 130 years old. Obviously, that is a person who could never appear in court. They then persuaded the court to grant ownership of the property to them, and took the property from the [Polish] owners that were living there." 

Q: Is there a way for Israel and Poland to get back on the right track?

"I am sure there is a way to stop this. So far we have only been accused of "erasing history" and that we are immoral. These are harsh accusations and do not take the wording of the law into account. 

"I believe both sides would like to discuss the content of the law, but such a message needs to be conveyed in a completely different way. We are open to discuss this, and that is why we Israel's ambassador to Poland [Anna Azari]. We were open and honest, and I hope we can find a solution that way." 

i24NEWS contributed to this report

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Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who on Thursday took a stringent position against a Polish bill to limit the restitution of property stolen from Polish Jews, continued to press the Polish government on Sunday, urging Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki to "check the facts."

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Morawiecki said earlier Sunday that as long as he was prime minister, Poland "would certainly not pay for the Germans' crimes: not a zloty, not a euro, and not a dollar."

Lapid responded by pointing out that "Millions of Jews were murdered on Polish soil and no legislation will wipe out their memory. We don't care about the Polish money. This hints at antisemitism."

"We are battling for the memory of the Holocaust victims, the pride of our people, and we will not allow any parliament to pass laws the purpose of which is to deny the Holocaust," Lapid said.

On Sunday, Polish Ambassador to Israel Marek Magierowski received a summons to meet with the head of the Foreign Ministry's political department, Alon Bar, over the Polish draft bill.

According to a Foreign Ministry communique, Bar expressed Israel's extreme disappointment that the legislation had passed the lower house and warned Magierowski that if it became law, it would have an adverse effect on Polish-Israeli relations.

Bar told the Polish envoy that Israel's objection to the bill had nothing to do with any ideological debate about responsibility for the Holocaust, but was anchored in Poland's responsibility to its former citizens whose property had been stolen.

After the meeting, Magierowski tweeted that he had tried to "redress the misunderstandings and calm the waters" by explaining the Polish Code of Administrative Procedure to the Israeli public.

Chairman of the Claims Conference Gideon Taylor said his organization was "very disappointed" by the response of Polish officials, including Prime Minister Morawiecki, to the Jewish world's response to the draft legislation.

"As we have already told the Polish government, the draft bill deals with confiscations that were carried out by the communist authorities after the war and are not related to the terrible crimes the Germans perpetrated in Poland during the war," Taylor said.

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Polish Ambassador to Israel Marek Magierowski received a summons on Sunday to meet with head of the Foreign Ministry's political department, Alon Bar, over a Polish draft bill that would make it harder for Jews to recover property seized by Nazi German occupiers and kept by postwar communist rulers.

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The lower house of the Polish parliament passed the draft legislation on Thursday.

According to a Foreign Ministry communique, Bar expressed Israel's extreme disappointment that the legislation had passed the lower house and warned Magierowski that if it became law, it would have an adverse effect on Polish-Israeli relations.

Bar told the Polish envoy that Israel's objection to the bill had nothing to do with any ideological debate about responsibility for the Holocaust, but was anchored in Poland's responsibility to its former citizens, whose property was stolen.

On Thursday, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid spoke out against the draft bill, saying, "Israel will stand up to the law like a wall. The law is inconceivable and immoral."

"Preserving the memory of the Holocaust, making sure Holocaust survivors receive their rights and the entire issue of restoration of Jewish property that was stolen during the Holocaust are major components to Israel's identity," Lapid said.

"This is an important aspect of the Israeli Foreign Ministry's activity. It is a moral and historical obligation, which we all bear with pride," he added.

Lapid went on to warn that if Poland moved ahead with the legislation, it would comprise a serious blow to Israeli-Polish relations. "No law will change history. It's a disgrace that won't erase the horrors and the memory of the Holocaust. Israel will stand up for the memory of the Holocaust and the dignity of survivors, and for their property.

"Poland, on whose land millions of Jews were murdered, knows the right thing to do," Lapid said.

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In a historic vote, the cabinet unanimously voted on Monday in favor of a restitution package to compensate the families of some 1,050 new immigrant children from Yemen, Arab countries, and the Balkans who "disappeared" in the early years of the state.

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The matter of the unaccounted-for children of new immigrant families from these countries has been a painful one for Israeli society for decades and the focus of three different governmental commissions of inquiry.

In every case in which the commission of inquiry determined that a child died but his or her family was not informed about their deaths at the time will be paid 150,000 shekels ($46,000). If the fate of their children is undetermined, they family will be awarded 200,000 shekels ($61,300). The total cost of the restitution payments totals 162 million shekels ($49.6 million).

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "I brought the cabinet a decision to pay restitution to the families hurt in the affair. This is one of the most painful episodes in the history of the state. It is time for the families who babies were taken from them to be recognized by the state and the government, and also receive restitution.

"The restitution cannot make up for the terrible suffering the families endured and still endure, which is intolerable. We need to give them the small comfort to which they are entitled," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu said he wanted Education Minister Yoav Gallant to make sure that the Yemenite children affair was covered in the Israeli history curriculum.

"I thank the ministers, the MKs, and former MK Nurit Koren, who worked on this matter, as well as cabinet secretary Tzahi Braverman, who successfully spearheaded the issue," the prime minister added.

Finance Minister Israel Katz said, "With this decision, the government of Israel acknowledges the painful affairs, which is imprinted on the history of the country, which has not yet been thoroughly investigated. We will work to give the wronged families their full rights, and begin to heal the wounds of history, if only a bit. We will also work to commemorate the glorious heritage of Yemenite Jewry, which is intertwined with the history of our people."

In response to the decision, Union Sefaradi Mundial, a nonprofit devoted to commemorating the legacy of Sephardi Jewry, expressed disapproval of the restitution plan, calling it "offensive" the families.

"This is an attack on history and the pain the families have carried in their hearts from the day they lost their children. Restitution in and of itself is not enough. The government must admit the state's responsibility for the events of their children's disappearance. If three commissions of inquiry weren't enough, clear statements must be made accepting responsibility. The Yemenite, Mizrachi, and Balkan Children Affair must be written about in history books, and should not be attempted to be glossed over as if it never happened," the organization said.

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During a heated debate last week on the various provisions of the bill, a member of the Latvian parliament mentioned the Israel Hayom report on accusations against a prominent member of the Jewish community in Latvia, Gita Umanovska, who allegedly served as a spy for the Soviet KGB in the 1980s.

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The lawmaker also presented what he said was her "spy card" in the Latvian parliament.

"She supported the occupation by the Soviet Union, and now she will get compensation for the property that was taken by the Soviet Union. This is like giving the Gestapo money for property taken from Nazi victims," he said.

His comments were received with applause and the bill was taken off the current docket. The parliament is now expected to take it up for debate only in October at the earliest.

A source in the Latvian Jewish community said that Umanovska has published a study on Jewish women who worked as prostitutes in Riga in the 1930s, and her name was recently involved in an ultimately fruitless attempt to restore some 270 Jewish properties that were stolen in 1940, an issue that is considered politically volatile.

"It didn't come as a big shock [that she may have been a spy]. Some thought it could happen, but no one is rushing to talk about it," a Jewish community official told Israel Hayom.

Another official said that Umanovska was not considered a Jew under Jewish law, "which makes her case less interesting [to us]."

When contacted by Israel Hayom, Umanovska said, "I'm not interested in discussing this with journalists."

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