State issues new ID cards for children of same-sex parents

On Monday, Noa Evron was the first to receive her new ID card from PIBA with "Mother's name" and "Mother's name" listed.

By LIDAR GRAVÉ-LAZI
Identity card listing two mothers. (photo credit: Courtesy)
Identity card listing two mothers.
(photo credit: Courtesy)
The Interior Ministry’s Population, Immigration and Borders Authority started issuing ID cards on Monday to children of same-sex parents in which “Mother’s name” or “Father’s name” appear twice.
This policy was initiated following a petition by the children of four same-sex couples to the Interior Ministry with the help of their lawyers, Michal Eden and Ira Hadar.
Until now, PIBA ID cards listed a “Mother’s name” and a “Father’s name,” regardless of the gender of the parents, so that in the case of two mothers, one was listed under “Father’s name.” In 2006, following a petition by Hadar to the High Court of Justice, the Interior Ministry allowed a same-sex parent to adopt his or her partner’s child, though it did not issue ID cards to reflect this policy.
Noa Evron, a 20-year-old daughter of two mothers, was one of the petitioners to the Interior Ministry. Since the age of 16, her ID card listed her mother Yehudit under “Mother’s name” while her mother Aviva was listed under “Father’s name.” On Monday, she was the first to receive her ID card from PIBA with “Mother’s name” and “Mother’s name” listed.
“It is amazing, because even though I am just a small cog in all of this I feel that I am also a pioneer. This is a long process, but it is an important step for so many families,” Evron told The Jerusalem Post.
“This is how it should be, this is how my house looks like, I have two mothers,” she said. “I always grew up in a liberal and open environment and I never had an unpleasant experience because of this, but I don’t live in a bubble and there is still a lot to do to reach equality for same-sex families.
“People may take this for granted, but this is another step and another achievement for people who were very brave to form a ‘not normative’ family,” she added.
“Until today the community kept this to itself, but there is still so much more to achieve. I am very optimistic,” Evron said.
She praised her lawyers, Eden and Hadar, who “made all this possible.”
Eden and Hadar appealed to the Interior Ministry in May 2014, noting that each of their clients was born into a lesbian family headed by two mothers.
Each of the children was legally adopted by the non-biological mother and was therefore registered in the Population Registry as a child of two mothers.
“A majority of the children born in Israel to same-sex couples are younger than 16, so right now this affects dozens or maybe a hundred youths, but in the coming years there will be more and more children who will request these types of IDs,” Eden told the Post.
According to Eden, following this decision, children of same-sex parents can register to get the new ID, while children who turn 16 will be able to automatically request the new form.
“This is the first time this is happening in Israel and it is one more step in recognizing these children and their families,” she said.
Chen Arieli, head of the Aguda – The National Association of LGBT in Israel, praised the decision. “In Israel there are tens of thousands of gay families who are not registered by the state, and the issuance of ID cards is another step in our fight for recognition of gay families,” she said on Sunday.
The Population, Immigration and Borders Authority said that “the authority had prepared for such a likelihood in advance, both in terms of documentation and in procedures to the local branches.”


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