Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Israeli Consulate Workers Halt Almost All Services in Strike

Foreign Ministry employees heightened their 3-month old labor dispute Sunday by halting virtually all consular services abroad. The only exceptions will be emergencies, the repatriation of bodies to Israel and procedures relating to adoption and surrogacy.

The employees are demanding a collective agreement and are concerned about issues such as salary erosion. They also want a procedure for compensating spouses who are living abroad but not working, and the halting of double taxation of diplomats.

On Sunday, the union sent a cable to all employees abroad instructing them to “immediately halt all consular services.”

“The Finance Ministry is stalling for time, is treating us with contempt and is indifferent to the distress of Foreign Ministry workers and the tens of thousands of Israelis abroad who are suffering the results of the labor dispute,” the ministry’s workers’ union said in a statement. “We call on all citizens hurt by the sanctions to appeal to Kobi Amsalem, head of the Finance Ministry’s wages and labor-accord unit, and demand an end to the dispute.”

Last Tuesday the union instructed diplomats abroad to halt all procedures dealing with visits to Israel by foreign leaders and delegations. That move followed a decision by the Finance Ministry to deduct wages of workers taking part in the labor action.

Read more at Haaretz.com.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.