Teudat Zehut

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Israeli identity card

Teudat Zehut (תעודת זהות) is the Israeli compulsory identity document, as prescribed in the Identity Card Carrying and Displaying Act of 1982:

Any resident sixteen years of age or older must at all times carry an Identity card, and present it upon demand to a senior police officer, head of Municipal or Regional Authority, or a policeman or member of the Armed forces on duty. [link]

Contents

1 Law and common practice
2 Document contents
3 Question of nationality
4 ID card casing
5 Other
6 See also
7 External links

Law and common practice

Criminal offence carries a 5,000 NIS fine (about $1,000) for misuse of the document. However, charges are rarely brought up against offenders. In addition to this law, the identity card is required in order to exercise certain civil rights. Until recently it was the only valid identification for voting in a general elections. When not specifically required by law, other identification may be used, such as a driver's license or a passport, and these were valid for the last elections as well. In Israel, access to many office buildings requires showing an ID.

Identity cards are issued by the Israeli Ministry of Internal Affairs, through offices across the country. The document is issued to all residents over 16 years old who have legal permanent residence status, including non-citizens.

Document contents

The card includes the following personal details:

full name
date of birth (both civil and—for Jews—the Hebrew date as well)
place of birth
nationality (before 2002)
gender
portrait photo
unique number, called Identity Number.

The document has an appendix where the following is listed:

current address
previous addresses
previous name(s)
name and Identity number of spouse and children
electoral polling station stamp: the appendix is stamped at the polling station to help prevent ballot stuffing.

Question of nationality

There have been some fierce legal battles about listing the nationality in the Israeli Identity card. As of 2005, the nationality is not listed; a line of eight asterisks appears instead. In the past, the nationality of Jewish Israelis was shown as "Jewish", rather than "Israeli". In 2002, the Supreme Court of Israel instructed the Ministry to list people who underwent a Reform conversion as Jews. The Minister at the time, a member of an Orthodox party, decided he would rather drop the nationality listing altogether, rather than list as Jews people whom he considered non-Jews. In 2004 the Supreme Court denied a citizen's petition to reinstate this listing, stating that the field in the document was meant for statistical collection only, and not as a declarative statement of Judaism. Currently, the only way to determine whether an Identity card belongs to a Jew is to check whether the Hebrew date of birth appears in addition to the civil date.

ID card casing

The colour of the plastic casing of the Identity card of Israeli citizens and permanent residents is blue. Non-Israeli residents of the Palestinian territories used to have orange casings, issued by the Civil Administration of the territores. Since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, the PA issues its residents with Palestinian ID cards.

Other

The Identity number is comprised of nine digits, the last of which is a check digit calculated using a simple formula.

External links

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