In Israel, when you give birth in the hospital, the hospital takes care of the bureaucratic paperwork fun-time, otherwise known as getting a teudat zehut number for your newborn. They submit the papers which go to Misrad Hapnim to get processed for a birth certificate and ID number.
But when you do a leidat bayit – home birth – unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Both parents and the newborn have to shlep to Misrad Hapnim to get processed. We wanted to get this out of the way before Pesach starts because you can’t register your baby at a kupat holim until you have an ID number.
In the Jerusalem area, only the Misrad Hapnim in the center of town can do this processing; Gilo does not (even though the phone help line claims it does). Apparently Beit Shemesh can too.
The good news is, you don’t have to wait on the long lines that everyone else does. There is a separate office for registering newborns, which you can go directly to.
So, as someone who shlepped out to get it done on day 5 of newborn life, here’s what you need to bring so you don’t have to come back:
- A copy of your midwife’s license
- The midwife’s תצהיר מיילדת form, which she has stamped by a lawyer
- The midwife’s טופס תיעוד לידת בית
- Both parents’ teudot zehut
- Proof you were pregnant; a printed ma’akav herayon will do (though he didn’t look at it)
- The write-up from your visiting pediatrician/family doctor (though he didn’t look at it)
I made copies of everything and handed over the copies (but brought the originals). I also brought the טופס אומדן גופני של הילוד but I don’t think you need to.
A catch: You have to provide a name for the child. We happened to already have decided on the name, so we gave it, even though we haven’t officially named her at the Torah yet. But I suppose you could give a temporary one and change it if need be…
All in all, the whole thing took under an hour, including parking in Mamilla and walking to and from the office.
The only creepy thing was the large stack of תעודות פטירה – death certificates – sitting in a pile on the office windowsill next to me.
Whadya got: