...לא יקרא עוד שמך יונתן

As you may recall, the first time we tried to get our תעדות זהות, we forgot to bring our documents. We went back the following Sunday with all our documents. We showed up early again, waited in line again, and declared our purpose to the lady in the booth again, who said "weren't you guys here last week?"

Our turn came pretty quickly, and a nice lady began filling out the forms. There isn't much to the process, so it didn't take long. She did tell us one thing we'd never heard before: that we have some sort of three month grace period, during which we can "change our mind". I'm still not sure what that means exactly. Maybe it means if you leave Israel within the first three months, you've essentially aborted your aliyah, and maybe your kids aren't considered Israeli, or something. It was kind of a surprise.

Our main concern was Rachel's name. If a couple makes aliyah after they get married, but before the woman changes her name in America, she can do so pretty easily by just telling the מסרד הפנים what name she wants on her תעודת זהות. Rachel wanted her name to be Rachel Levinson, but she also wanted it to say "Horwitz" on the bottom part (there are two cards that make up a תעודת זהות, a top and bottom card). That way we will avoid confusion and/or suspicion at airports, mostly. Rachel has already been suspected once already!

We told this to the lady, and although there was some initial confusion, it seemed clear that she knew what she wanted. However, when we were finished, she told us to go pick them up at the card-printing-booth. Lo and behold, Horwitz was nowhere to be seen on Rachel's. By this time, our lady had already moved on to the next customer in the queue, and we didn't have time to wait for our next go around. Rachel had to make another trip later that week just to get it fixed; now it's as it should be.

However, there was one other name change - instead of יונתן, my תעודת זהות read יהונתן. I immediately realized why: when we were processed in the airport's little מסרד הפנים, the guy behind the desk spelled my name with a ה, even though I've never spelled it that way. Didn't have his coffee yet, I guess. But clearly the mistake was carried over to the very card that is supposed to identify me. Like Rachel, I too got my named legally changed, albeit unintentionally!

My first reaction was to go with her and have mine fixed, too, in case the extra letter ever caused confusion. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that would probably happen rarely if ever. After all, who would raise an eyebrow at יהונתן vs יונתן?

Plus, I thought to myself, when it comes to Jews in Israel having a ה added to their name, I'm in pretty good company.