The former Soviet Union

The Ministry of Aliyah and Integration runs the Department for Evaluation of Academic Degrees from Abroad, which compares your foreign degree to an Israeli one. This nostrification sets your academic salary ranking in the public sector and lets you bid on public tenders, but it is not a licence to practise. Regulated fields, medicine, nursing, engineering, teaching, law, have their own licensing bodies, so an FSU professional can hold a valid evaluation and still not be allowed to work until separately licensed.

Check:The evaluation is for salary and public-sector recognition. Confirm the separate licence path for your profession with that profession’s regulator, not with the degree-evaluation department.

Physicians who trained abroad usually must pass a Ministry of Health licensing or internship exam before they can practise or enter the Israeli internship. The exam is computerised, two sections of 110 multiple-choice questions, pass mark 60 percent, and can be taken in several languages including Russian. Some graduates are exempt, for example those who completed USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 CK or hold a recognised degree from a defined list of countries with a completed internship, so this is the classic FSU downgrade: a working Soviet-trained doctor often has to re-qualify.

Check:Exemptions, and whether you sit the licensing exam or the internship exam, are case-specific by country and training. Confirm your route with the Ministry of Health before assuming you must, or need not, sit it.

For degree evaluation, documents in Russian or Ukrainian are accepted without translation but copies must carry a certified-true-copy stamp from an Israeli lawyer or a ministry absorption adviser, and documents in other FSU languages must be translated into Hebrew or English. Where the issuing archive is hard to reach, Israel added a sworn-affidavit route for olim who fled Ukraine in 2022 without their originals, letting a declaration support an evaluation request. Other authorities, Interior, Bituach Leumi, the Rabbanut, set their own apostille and notarised-translation rules.

Check:The no-translation rule and the Ukraine affidavit apply to the degree-evaluation department. For civil-status documents each receiving authority sets its own apostille and translation rules, so confirm per institution.

Israel’s old-age pension from Bituach Leumi requires a qualifying period of contributions as an Israeli resident. An oleh who immigrates at or after retirement age cannot build that period, so instead of the standard contributory pension they may receive a special old-age benefit that is welfare-based and funded by the Treasury. That benefit is income-tested, and worldwide passive income counts, so an FSU pension paid from abroad can reduce or block it.

Check:Thresholds, the income test, and whether any FSU pension is portable or offset are individual. Check your case with Bituach Leumi, including their eligibility simulator, and confirm how any pension from an FSU state is treated.

Israel has no civil marriage for Jews performed inside the country: Jewish marriage is conducted only through the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate. Many FSU olim were admitted under the Law of Return, which reaches a person with one Jewish grandparent and their spouse, but the Rabbanut recognises as Jewish only someone born to a Jewish mother or Orthodox-converted, so a large number of FSU olim cannot marry through it. In practice couples in this position commonly marry civilly abroad, Cyprus is a frequent route, and register that marriage in Israel, or rely on common-law recognition.

Check:This is factual orientation, not advice, and the law here is contested and periodically changing. Confirm the current options for your own status before making plans.