I’ll hazard a guess that few of you have familiarised yourselves with the Byzantine complexities of British citizenship, so this week’s post is a wonderful opportunity to plug that gap in your education.

Both of our children are British citizens, but of two different classes. Esther, born in Wales, and even boasting a bilingual birth certificate, is a British citizen by birth. Incidentally, we had to pay extra for the Welsh-language certificate; had there been a General Election during the period between Esther’s birth and our move to Israel, I would have been sorely tempted to vote Plaid Cymru (Welsh Nationalist) for this reason alone.

Micha’el, on the other hand, born over 3 years later in Jerusalem, is a British citizen by descent (born outside Britain to a parent born in Britain). You know, I still can’t quite believe that we have a son who was born in Jerusalem – and, now, a grandson who is a second-generation Jerusalemite!

This citizenship classification is not just a technical distinction; it has ramifications. Specifically, the children of British citizens by birth inherit their parents’ citizenship; the children of British citizens by descent do not.

In other words, any children Esther had would be British automatically, whereas Micha’el’s son, Tao, is not British. Similarly, Tslil is not eligible for British citizenship on the basis of being married to Micha’el (leaving aside the fact that they have not actually been through a marriage ceremony recognised by any authorities).

And therein lies the rub. As a British citizen, Micha’el is the citizen of what was, when they moved to Portugal, an EU state, and therefore he was eligible for a resident certificate in Portugal, allowing him to stay for five years, after which time he can apply for a permanent residence certificate or, after six years, for citizenship. Tslil, on the other hand, is not eligible. And this despite her descent, on her mother’s side, from the Jewish community of Saloniki (or Thessaloniki, the name to which the city has now officially reverted, after some 900 years of dithering). Saloniki was, from 1492 until 1942, a major Jewish community, founded by refugees following the Spanish expulsion, and by far the largest city in the Diaspora to have a Jewish majority among its population. It seems to me that Tslil’s claim to Portuguese residency is far more solidly grounded than Micha’el’s. One of his great-grandmothers claimed to be of Portuguese descent (as I mentioned in an earlier post); other than that, his tenuous link to Portugal is through Britain, and that only goes back three generations (to his other great-grandparents who all came from Eastern Europe) or, if you prefer, two generations, to when Britain joined the EEC, as it then was.

Anyway, bottom line: Tslil, and Tao, are most of the way through a process of acquiring the much-sought-after residency permit. One reason why it is so desirable is that, without it, their status is that of tourists, and they are required, every six months, to spend time outside Portugal. The latest we hear from the kids is that Tslil had a very productive meeting with the authorities in Castelo Branco, except that one document she submitted had not been correctly completed by the authorities in Penamacor. So, another trip to Castelo is scheduled, and we hope that might be the last step.

Perhaps I can tell you a little more about their plans, to explain why permanent residency in Portugal is so important to them. I apologise if I am covering some old ground here, but their plans have evolved considerably since their arrival in Portugal, and it is not easy to keep up with some developments.

Their long-term plan is to form a community of like-minded individuals and families, a permaculture village. Unlike some communities of this kind in Portugal, this is not planned to be a touchy-feely closed community (as Micha’el described it to me: ‘a bunch of hippies sitting round a fire singing Kumbaya‘). Instead, they want to engage in research, exploring the potential of new/old techniques in construction, agriculture, living in harmony with their environment; and also to carry out a lot of outreach, not only to the world community of the ecologically aware and interested, but also to the local rural community in the middle of which they are putting down their roots.

I was planning to go on to describe one such piece of research and potential outreach, in the field of fire prevention and containment. They have developed a novel approach to this very real threat, and their hope is that not only will they be able to persuade the authorities to approve this plan for their land, but also that this will encourage other landowners to adapt and adopt it for themselves. As I say, I planned to explain this to you as best I could. However, Micha’el has just posted an excellent video, which not only does a far better job of explaining than I could, but also gives you an opportunity to see something of the land they have bought. The most helpful thing I can do is invite you to follow the link (and, as ever, urge you to subscribe to, like and help disseminate the kids’ YouTube channel).

Every time we walk on the land, or even see a video of it, I am struck by the scale of the task that lies ahead of the kids. This is clearly a project that will span decades, which seems to me very daunting, but, for the kids themselves, is not the least exciting aspect of it.

Even the first steps in building this community are small and gradual. However, after five months, the kids have made a lot of progress. They now have a clearer picture of the bureaucratic process of getting planning permission to build a home on the land. Together with their partner, Shir, they have registered themselves as a company, which made bureaucratic and administrative sense, focusing on research and consultancy in the broad field of permaculture. Immediately after we left Portugal, a week ago, two other potential partners arrived, to stay with the kids for a few days, explore common ground and discuss plans. Going forward, Micha’el and Tslil will be receiving a monthly salary for the development work they are doing, and they have already been approached by potential clients for their consultancy services. In the light of these developments, Micha’el allowed his mother to buy him a couple of button shirts and a pair of respectable trousers, for official meetings. All the rest of the time, he prefers to dress casually. But don’t think Val Doonican or Andy Williams; this casuality has a much stronger Eastern influence below the waist and a much more sleeveless t-shirt one above. The key concept is ‘comfortable’, which translates to ‘baggy’. Bernice is reminded of her late father, who could not stand feeling constricted by clothes, and who therefore always wore shirts whose collar, and trousers whose waistband, were at least two sizes bigger than he was.

Those of you who know Micha’el well will, doubtless, share the astonishment Bernice and I feel every time we see our son, in his capacity as a landowner and joint CEO of a registered company, driving off in his smart clothes to a meeting with his lawyer or accountant. But then, Micha’el’s mission in life since childhood, it sometimes seems, has been to astonish us, in a huge variety of ways.

By the time of our planned return to Portugal in June, there should have been several developments on the ground. Novel coronavirus willing, we are eagerly anticipating seeing how the community, and our grandson (but not necessarily in that order), have grown and developed in the intervening three months.

Speaking of Tao (nice segue, eh!), he is one year old today, and just about ready to graduate to his new car seat. He’s not a great fan of sitting in the car seat, but he loved the box it came in. (Excuse the appalling out-of-focus shot, into the dark, facing the light. The B after the David clearly stands for Brownstein rather than Bailey.)