Few documents carry as much weight, or as much ambiguity, as a divorce decree. A single page can determine whether you are free to remarry, how property is divided across borders, and whether a foreign authority will treat your new marital status as valid. When that document was issued in one country and must be recognized in another, translation stops being a convenience and becomes a legal prerequisite. In Israel, the picture is doubly complex, because two parallel systems exist side by side: the civil divorce decree recognized by courts and government ministries, and the Jewish get (גט), the religious bill of divorce administered by the rabbinical courts.
This article explains how each document is translated for legal recognition, what Israeli authorities such as the Ministry of Interior and the rabbinical courts actually require, and where translation errors most often cause delays. The goal is not to oversimplify but to give you an accurate map of a process that, handled correctly, is entirely manageable.
Two documents, two legal worlds
A civil divorce decree is the order issued by a competent court (or, in some jurisdictions, an administrative body) that legally dissolves a marriage. It typically records the parties, the date the marriage ended, and sometimes findings on custody, alimony, and the division of assets. A Jewish get, by contrast, is a religious instrument. It is drafted by a sofer (scribe) under rabbinical supervision and delivered by the husband to the wife, and it is what permits an observant Jewish couple to remarry within Jewish law. The two are not interchangeable, and Israeli practice treats them as distinct categories with distinct evidentiary value.
Understanding this distinction matters before you commission a translation. A foreign court may want to see the civil decree; an Israeli rabbinical court, or a foreign rabbinate, may insist on documentation of the get. In many cross-border cases both are needed, and each must be rendered into the target language with terminology that the receiving authority recognizes. Translating a get as if it were an ordinary civil judgment, or vice versa, is one of the most common and costly mistakes.
Why a literal translation is not enough
Divorce documents are dense with terms of art that do not survive a word-for-word rendering. A get contains formulaic Aramaic and Hebrew language, the names of the parties spelled according to specific rabbinical conventions, place names, and the Hebrew calendar date, all of which must be transcribed and explained rather than merely converted. Civil decrees, in turn, use jurisdiction-specific vocabulary: a decree absolute differs from a decree nisi, a psak din (final judgment) differs from an interim order, and the legal effect of each term depends on the system that produced it.
A competent legal translator does more than swap words. They preserve the structure and force of the original, transliterate names consistently (a recurring problem when a name appears in Hebrew, in a passport, and in a foreign decree in three different spellings), and flag anything that cannot be carried directly into the target language. For a get in particular, names and dates are the heart of the document; an inconsistency between the name on the get and the name on a civil record can stall a remarriage application until it is reconciled.
This is why machine translation, however fluent it sounds, is unsuitable for these documents. The receiving authority is not assessing readability. It is checking that the translated text faithfully and verifiably corresponds to the original, and that a qualified human stands behind that correspondence.
Notarization, certification, and the apostille
For a translated divorce document to be accepted, it usually needs more than accuracy: it needs a chain of authentication. In Israel, a notarial translation, or a notary's confirmation of the correctness of a translation under the Notaries Law, is frequently required when the translation is destined for an official body. A notary either certifies that they are competent in both languages and the translation is accurate, or attaches a sworn translator's affidavit. This converts a private translation into a document an authority can rely on.
When the document will be used abroad, an apostille is generally the next step. Israel is a party to the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention, so an apostille issued in Israel (by the Magistrates' Court for notarized documents, or by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for certain public documents) authenticates the document for use in any other member state, without further consular legalization. The order of operations matters: typically the original or notarized translation is prepared first, then the apostille is affixed. For countries outside the Convention, full consular legalization through the relevant embassy may be necessary instead.
A practical caution: confirm with the receiving authority whether they want the apostille on the original document, on the translation, or on the notary's certification. Getting this sequence wrong is the single most frequent reason a properly translated decree is sent back.
Recognition inside Israel: the Ministry of Interior and the rabbinical courts
Someone who divorced abroad and wishes to update their Israeli status registration must usually submit the foreign civil decree, translated and authenticated, to the Ministry of Interior (Population and Immigration Authority). The Ministry registers the change in marital status based on a recognized foreign judgment, and the quality of the translation directly affects how smoothly that registration proceeds. Discrepancies in names, dates, or the legal characterization of the judgment are the typical sources of delay.
Religious remarriage is a separate matter handled by the rabbinical courts (batei din). For a Jew who wishes to remarry in Israel, the rabbinical court will want to be satisfied that a valid get was given. Where the get was administered abroad, documentation from the foreign beit din, properly translated and identified, supports recognition. The rabbinical system applies its own standards of proof, which is precisely why the religious documents must be handled by translators familiar with both the Hebrew source and the conventions the dayanim expect to see.
Because the civil and religious tracks run in parallel, a person may need to satisfy both: the civil decree for the Ministry of Interior and for any foreign authority, and evidence of the get for the rabbinate. Planning the translation work for both tracks at once avoids duplicated effort and inconsistent transliterations across the two sets of documents.
A practical checklist before you commission a translation
Start by asking the receiving authority exactly what it requires: which document (civil decree, get, or both), into which language, and with what level of authentication (notarized translation, apostille, or consular legalization). A short email confirming these points can save weeks. Next, gather every spelling of each party's name as it appears in passports, the marriage record, and the divorce documents, and give all of them to your translator so names can be reconciled and transliterated consistently.
Finally, choose a translation provider with genuine experience in Israeli legal and rabbinical documents, not a generalist service. Divorce recognition sits at the intersection of civil law, religious law, and international authentication, and the small details (a calendar date, a transliterated name, the correct order of the apostille) decide whether the process moves or stalls. Handled by people who know the terrain, translating a divorce decree and a get is a clear, finite task, and one well worth getting right the first time.