What to Do When Someone Dies in Israel: Steps and Paperwork

Checked in September and October 2026 against gov.il, National Insurance (Bituach Leumi), the burial societies’ forum and Kol Zchut. Procedures change and some depend on the case: when in doubt, ask the office concerned.

If someone dies at home

At home, it is the family that sets things in motion:

1. Call Magen David Adom (101) or a doctor. Only a doctor or a paramedic can confirm a death. They fill in the medical death notification, the hodaat petira; ask for four signed copies.
2. Have the medical papers ready. If the person was ill, show them to the team. This usually avoids a police check and a post-mortem.
3. The police, when needed. The medical team decides whether to call them; if the death may not be natural (an accident, violence, suicide), they must be called. If they waive a post-mortem, ask for the signed waiver.
4. Call the removal hotline, *0120. It is run by the Ministry of Religious Services, answers at all hours and arranges the removal with the local chevra kadisha, the burial society. The body is taken to the nearest cold room free of charge. The first day of storage is free too; from the second day the family pays the Ministry of Health’s rate, or from the third if the body arrived on a Friday or the eve of a festival.
5. Get the burial permit (rishyon kvura) from the district health office, with the four copies, the person’s ID card, any police waiver and a medical document. The chevra kadisha often helps, out of office hours too.

If someone dies in hospital

A hospital doctor fills in the death notification and the admissions office gives it to the family; many hospitals also issue the burial permit. Keeping the body in the hospital’s cold room until the funeral is usually free; if the funeral is delayed, check with the hospital.

The death notification and the death certificate

The hodaat petira is the medical document needed for the burial permit, not the notice you send to family and friends. The death certificate, teudat petira, is the Population and Immigration Authority’s official document, the one the bank, the pension fund and the insurer will ask for.

• It is free. Close relatives (spouse, parents, children, grandparents, grandchildren, brothers and sisters) can download a digitally signed copy immediately from their personal area on gov.il, once the death is registered.
• It can also be requested at a Population Authority office, or by post (about five working days).
• It is issued in Hebrew only. For use abroad, have it translated by a notary; many countries also require an apostille.
• For a death abroad, the Authority issues an extract from the Population Registry (tamtzit rishum) instead.

The chevra kadisha: cemetery, plot and funeral time

The chevra kadisha sets the time and place of the funeral, usually soon after the death and often the same day; you can ask it to wait a day or two for relatives from abroad. The free burial is in the cemetery of the town where the person lived, as listed in the Population Registry; someone who did not die in hospital (at home, for instance) may also be buried free where they died. Someone who died in hospital is buried free only where they lived, unless there is no cemetery there that suits their beliefs (a civil one, for example); then they may also be buried free in the hospital’s town. For a patient of a psychiatric, geriatric or chronic-care hospital whose address was changed to the hospital’s, the family may also choose the town where the person lived before, if the change was made less than seven years ago. Who pays for what is in burial and headstone costs. The family of an oleh or olah may be asked for proof that the person was Jewish, such as their birth certificate and their mother’s. To bring home a resident who died abroad, the chevra kadisha needs a confirmation of residency from National Insurance; a financial guarantee can stand in while it is checked.

Civil burial

By law, anyone may be buried according to their own beliefs, in a civil cemetery or a civil section. In some cemeteries it is funded like religious burial: check that the burial provider is licensed, and choose “civil” in National Insurance’s burial calculator. There are also funded sections for people with no religion.

Telling family, friends and work

Usually one person sends a single message with the funeral’s time and place to every group. Fill in the details and get a notice ready to send or print, or see examples of the wording. Tell employers too: up to seven days of mourning leave for a spouse, parent, sibling or child are paid, after three months in the job.

The funeral and the shiva

Jewish custom is to bury quickly, often the same day, but never on Shabbat or Yom Kippur, and festivals have their own rules: someone who dies on Shabbat is buried after it ends. The shiva begins when the family returns from the cemetery and is counted from the burial, and most of what follows can wait until it ends (the shiva and shloshim calculator gives the dates). What happens at the funeral, and what the family does during the shiva.

The first weeks: a checklist

The gov.il service “livui le’achar petira” (help after a death), open to spouses, parents and children in their personal area, gathers much of this: the death certificate, the inheritance or probate application, the rights that may apply, and tools to find bank accounts and insurance policies.

National Insurance

• The burial fees go straight to the chevra kadisha.
• The death grant is usually paid automatically to the spouse of someone who received a benefit; if it does not arrive, file a claim.
• The survivors’ pension for a widow, widower or orphans needs a claim, online or at a branch, within 12 months of the death. National Insurance sends the form itself, and the claim covers the death grant too.

Bank accounts

You do not need to tell the bank: the Interior Ministry informs most financial institutions. The accounts are then frozen until an inheritance or probate order is issued, a joint account too unless a survivorship clause (“arichut yamim”) was signed in advance, and standing orders stop. Har HaKesef, a government site, finds a person’s accounts; ask each bank as well.

Pensions, provident funds and insurance

A pension fund may pay a survivors’ pension to the spouse, the children and sometimes the parents. Provident funds, study funds and life insurance go to their named beneficiaries, not necessarily the heirs, on presentation of the death certificate; Har HaBituach finds policies. After a year with one employer, the survivors are owed severance pay.

The Population Registry

The death is usually recorded from the death notification. A surviving spouse updates their marital status in the ID card appendix (sefach) in person at a Population Authority office, with the person’s ID card. A death abroad is registered at a Population Authority office or an Israeli consulate, before any inheritance application.

The inheritance order or probate order

Nothing can be divided without an order: a probate order (tzav kiyum tzava’a) if there is a will, with the original attached, or an inheritance order (tzav yerusha) if not. Apply to the Registrar of Inheritance, preferably online (the inheritance-order form also exists in English), or to a religious court if all agree; notify the heirs and pay a fee and a publication charge. The order usually comes within about 40 days, digitally, and goes straight to banks, insurers and the Land Registry.

A lawyer is not required, but with many heirs, debts or assets abroad, legal advice can help. Debts are paid from the estate before it is divided, and an heir generally pays no more than they inherited.

What else to cancel or transfer

• Charges for the person alone (private health insurance, subscriptions): ask each to stop from the date of death.
• Arnona (municipal tax), electricity, water and phone that the household keeps: move the standing order into an heir’s name.
• A caregiver: the death ends the employment, and their last salary, notice pay and, after a year, severance are generally paid from the estate.

What the paperwork does not keep

Most of this list is closed within months. What was said during the shiva, the stories and the photographs brought out of cupboards, is easier to lose. A memorial page on Place a Stone keeps it in one place: once the page is open, relatives and friends send memories, and the family approves each one before it appears.