Can the non-Jewish widow or widower of a Jew make Aliyah under the Law of Return?

The 1970 amendment that added Section 4A was designed to keep mixed families together, and its second subsection deliberately detached the derived right from the Jewish relative's own circumstances. The same wording covers a child or grandchild of a Jew whose Jewish parent or grandparent died long ago and never lived in Israel. For a spouse, the key question is whether the marriage was valid and subsisting at the time of death. A divorced former spouse generally loses the derived entitlement, and the Population and Immigration Authority examines a widowed applicant's later remarriage closely. Citizenship follows under Section 2 of the Nationality Law 5712-1952 once the applicant arrives on an oleh visa.

Widowed applicants are sometimes told, wrongly, that their right ended with the spouse's death or that they had to immigrate together. What they need is documentary proof of three things: the marriage, the death, and the deceased spouse's Jewish status or Jewish parentage. Records such as a ketubah, a Jewish burial certificate or a parent's synagogue documents are commonly used, with foreign documents apostilled. Children of the deceased Jewish spouse qualify in their own right, while a child the widow had with someone else does not. Our guide to the Law of Return explains the documents the Jewish Agency and the Population and Immigration Authority accept.

From the full guide: Israel's Law of Return: Who Qualifies and How to Apply

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