You're back home. The baby entered on a U.S. passport, the process of recognizing the biological parent is in motion (I covered it in the previous post) – and it seems the bureaucracy is behind you. But for couples where only one partner is the genetic parent, one supremely important step remains: the judicial parentage order (tzav horut pesikati), which makes the second parent a parent for all intents and purposes – in the eyes of the State of Israel too. And there's a clock running here, so read to the end.
Why is it needed at all? Because the route I described – the DNA test and the judgment – recognizes the biological parent. The second parent, the one who attended every appointment, who gets up at night, whom the child calls Dad – as far as the Israeli registry is concerned, at that stage, is still a legal stranger to the child. The judicial parentage order is the tool Israel's family courts developed exactly for this: a judgment establishing that the non-biological parent is the minor's parent as well.
An important legal point many people miss: Israeli law regards the birth mother – that is, the surrogate – as the child's mother, so long as nothing else has been established. Therefore, alongside the petition for the order, the court will want to see that the surrogate's legal tie has been severed – through a post-birth judgment issued in the U.S., or another appropriate document from the American proceeding settling the termination of her status. This is one more reason to guard every document from the U.S. process zealously, as I wrote in the previous post: what looks like "just another paper" in the U.S. is exactly what the Israeli court will need.
And why does it matter so much, even if "at home everything is clear anyway"? Because legal parenthood is not a symbol – it's rights and duties in the real world: medical decisions for the child, registrations, inheritance, national insurance and tax credits, and heaven forbid – what happens in case of separation or tragedy. Without the order, the second parent depends on the world's goodwill. With it – he's a parent, period.
Now for the clock: retroactive effect. Under the framework consolidated in case law and the Attorney General's position, a petition for a judicial parentage order filed within 90 days of the birth can be granted parentage retroactive to the day of birth – meaning the second parent is considered a parent from the child's very first moment, with everything that implies: national insurance rights, tax credits, parental leave and more. A petition filed later may only be recognized from the date the order is issued. Note that this area is dynamic and the exact details change from time to time – your attorney will give you the current formula – but the principle is simple and clear: file as early as possible, and certainly don't let the 90 days slip by "until we settle in".
Another recurring question: is the order "less" than adoption or biological parenthood? No. Legally, parenthood by judicial parentage order is full and equal parenthood. Your child is the child of both of you – now in every government registry as well.
My tip: engage the parentage-order attorney before the birth, as part of your Israeli team, and ask for the document list in advance – especially certified copies of the U.S. post-birth judgment. Some documents are easy to obtain while you're still there, and hard and expensive to obtain from the couch in Israel.
