Teudat Zehut
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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. [1]
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[edit] Law and common practice
Criminal offence carries a 5,000 NIS fine for not carrying an identity card or 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.
[edit] Document contents
The card includes the following personal details:
- unique number, called Identity Number
- full name (surname/last name, given name, father's name)
- name of mother
- date of birth (both civil and—for Jews—the Hebrew date as well)
- place of birth
- nationality (before 2005)
- gender
- place and date of issue
- portrait photo
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.
[edit] Question of nationality
There have been some fierce legal battles about identifying the nationality of the bearer in the Israeli Identity card. As of 2005, the nationality has not been printed; a line of eight asterisks appears instead. In the past, the nationality of Jewish Israelis was indicated as "Jewish", rather than "Israeli". In 2002, the Supreme Court of Israel instructed the Interior Ministry to indicate the nationality 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 nationality 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, 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.
[edit] 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 insignia of Israel embossed on the outer cover. Non-Israeli residents of the Palestinian territories were issued ID cards by the Civil Administration of the territories, 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 "Nationality" category was replaced with a "Religion" category). The casings for these cards were orange 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 which 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.
[edit] Other
The Identity number is comprised of nine digits, the last of which is a check digit calculated using a simple formula.
