Teudat Zehut

'Teudat Zehut' (Hebrew: תעודת זהות‎; Arabic: بطاقة هوية / biţāqat huwīya‎)
An example of the old Teudat Zehut
Issued by	Israel
Eligibility requirements	16 years of age legal permanent residence status (including non-citizens)
Expiration	no expiration date

Teudat Zehut (Hebrew: תעודת זהות‎; Arabic: بطاقة هوية / biţāqat huwīya‎) 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. — חוק החזקת תעודת זהות והצגתה (Identity Card Carrying and Displaying Act of 1982) on the Hebrew Wikisource.

Law and common practice

Criminal offence carries a 5,000 Old Israeli shekel fine for not carrying an identity card or for misuse of the document (in 1983 prices, which equal about 1,400 NIS today). However, the law explicitly forbids pressing charges in case the offender contacted the relevant authorities within five days and identified himself properly. In practice, charges are rarely brought up against offenders even when they fail to fulfill this demand. 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 general elections, however since 2005 the law also permits the use of a valid driving license or a valid Israeli passport for this purpose.^[1] When not specifically required by law, other identification may be used. In Israel, access to many office buildings or guarded areas requires showing an ID.^[2]

Identity cards are issued by the Israeli Interior Ministry, 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. The document has no expiry date, and it can be used as long as it is intact.

Document contents

The card is laminated and held in one of the two inner compartments of its plastic cover, and includes the following personal details:

• unique number, called Identity Number
• full name (surname/last name, given name)
• name of father
• name of mother
• date of birth (both civil and—for Jews—the Hebrew date as well (voluntarily)^[3]
• place of birth^[4]
• ethnicity (only in cards issued before 2005, but when the Hebrew date of birth appears, it is indicative of a Jewish origin)
• gender
• place and date of issue (both Gregorian and Hebrew date)
• portrait photo (in color)

There is also a separate document appendix, a folded paper contained in the other inner compartment, listing the following:

• current address
• previous addresses
• previous name(s)
• citizenship (the bearer may be a permanent resident with a foreign citizenship)
• name, birth date and identity number of spouse and children
• electoral polling station stamp: the appendix used to be stamped at the polling station to help prevent ballot stuffing. This regulation is abolished since 1992, so that the voter may now use an ID card without an appendix.

Question of ethnicity

Prior to 2005 Israeli Identity Cards included a reference to the bearer's ethnic group. The official term for this category in Hebrew was le'om (לאום), and it was officially translated into Arabic as qawmīya (قومية). These terms can be translated into English as "nation", but in the sense of ethnic affiliation rather than citizenship. The le'om attribution was assigned by the ministry of the interior regardless of the card bearer's preference. There were several attributions, the main ones being: Jewish, Arab, Druze and Circassian. Identity Cards issued before 2005 included a disclaimer written in small print in Hebrew and Arabic indicating that the card may serve as a prima facie proof for the data it includes except le'om, marital status and the spouse's name.

There have been some fierce legal battles about identifying the ethnicity of the bearer in the Israeli Identity card. As of 2005, the ethnicity has not been printed; a line of eight asterisks appears instead. In 2002, the Supreme Court of Israel instructed the Interior Ministry to indicate the ethnicity of people who underwent a Reform conversion as Jews. The Minister at the time, Eli Yishai, a member of Shas, an Orthodox party, decided he would drop the ethnicity category 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 indicator, stating that the field in the document was meant for statistical collection only, and not as a declarative statement of Judaism.

Currently, whether a citizen is Jewish or non-Jewish can in some cases be determined by checking whether the Hebrew date of birth appears in addition to the civil date. The state's registration which serves as the basis for the data in the Identity Cards still indicates the ethnicity of each person, and this information is available upon request in certain circumstances determined by the registration law.

An amendment to the Israeli registration law approved by the Knesset in 2007 determines that a Jew may ask to remove the Hebrew date from his entry, and consequently from his Identity Card. This is due to errors that often occur in the registration of the Hebrew date because the Hebrew calendar day starts at sunset and not at midnight. The amendment also introduces an explicit definition for the term "a day according to the Hebrew calendar".

ID card casing and variations

The colour of the plastic casing of the Identity card of Israeli citizens and permanent residents is blue, with the Israeli Coat of Arms embossed on the outer cover. Non-Israeli residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were issued ID cards by the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria (and Gaza until 2005), which had an almost identical layout as the Israeli card (the differences being that the surname category came after the first name, father's name, and grandfather's name categories instead of at the top, and the "ethnicity" category was replaced with a "religion" category). The casings for these cards were orange (West Bank ) or red (Gaza Strip) with the IDF insignia embossed on the outer cover. Palestinians who were barred from entering Israel were issued ID cards with green casings instead of orange to identify them as such. Since the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority, the PNA issues its residents with Palestinian ID cards based on Israeli approval. They are identical to the Israeli Civil Administration cards save for the order of languages being switched, with Arabic coming before Hebrew, and the plastic casing being dark green with the PNA insignia embossed on the outer cover. Israel controls the Palestinian population registry per the Interim Agreements, and assigns the ID numbers for Palestinian ID cards.

Israel began issuing ID cards to Palestinian residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip following its occupation in 1967.

Other

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

Remarks and references

1. ^ Amendment no. 54 to article no. 74 of the Election Law, approved by the Knesset on December 5, 2005.
2. ^ For example, the Al-Aqsa mosque area in Jerusalem, Azrieli Towers in Tel Aviv, Aviv Towers in Ramat Gan and many others.
3. ^ Identity, Security and Democracy: The Wider Social and Ethical Implications, Mordini and Green, p. x.
4. ^ The place name: Israel may refer to people born in the British mandate Palestine (but not in the Emirate of Transjordan) and in Israeli localities and settlements outside the "Green Line".

See also

• Who is a Jew?
• Identity document
• Jewish identity and inter-religious marriages in Reform Judaism

External links

• Full text of Supreme Court ruling
• Perseverance, East Jerusalem, c/o Israel