Hebrew translator in Tbilisi

Last reviewed: 13 November 2026 · facts checked against official sources

Hebrew translation in Georgia differs from other languages in one thing: here a twenty-six-century history stands between the two countries. The community of Georgian Jews, which since the 1970s has numbered more than a hundred thousand people in Israel, is to this day connected to Georgia through papers: for repatriation the birth certificates of grandparents, Soviet-era archive extracts, the records of the synagogues of Kutaisi and Oni. The second flow is more recent: Israeli couples who come to Tbilisi for a civil marriage, Israeli investors in Georgian real estate, Georgian doctors applying for a Ministry of Health licence, students at the Technion and Tel Aviv University. We translate from Hebrew into Georgian and from Georgian into Hebrew, arrange the apostille on the Georgian original at the House of Justice, translate the document including the apostille, and the notary certifies the authenticity of the translator's signature. On this page we explain what makes Israel's document system different from both Europe's and Georgia's: two apostilles in one country, a notary who can certify a translation only in their own languages, and a script in which vowels are not written.

In Israel two authorities issue apostilles, and they are often confused

Israel has been a party to the Hague Apostille Convention since 1978, but the issuing of apostilles is divided between two authorities, and this is the first thing we clarify for a client in Israel. A state document, a birth certificate, a population register extract (תמצית רישום), a certificate of no criminal record, is apostilled by the consular department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem or its reception points. A notarial document, including a translation done and notarised in Israel, is apostilled by the clerk of the Magistrates' Court (בית משפט השלום), and this is possible in any city. If you bring a birth certificate to the court, they will turn you back; if you bring a notarial translation to the Foreign Ministry, the same will happen. In the opposite direction the rule is different: in Georgia an apostille is not placed on a notarised translation, because under the rules of the Public Service Development Agency the notarial certification of a translation cannot be apostilled. The Georgian original receives its apostille at the House of Justice, which we arrange within the order, the document is then translated including the apostille, and the notary certifies the authenticity of the translator's signature. Some Israeli authorities, for example a rabbinical court, want the translation certified by an Israeli notary or by a translator they recognise, so check with the receiving body before ordering (document route).

The Israeli notary and translation: "the notary knows the language" or "the translator's declaration"

Israel's Notaries Law gives a notary the right to certify the accuracy of a translation (אישור נכונות תרגום) only if they command both languages themselves. Otherwise the notary only certifies the translator's declaration (הצהרת מתרגם), that is, that the translator declared the accuracy of the translation under oath, and these two documents have different force for Israeli authorities: the Population and Immigration Authority (רשות האוכלוסין וההגירה), courts and banks often require the first. For the Georgian language Israel has one advantage that other languages do not: thanks to the community of Georgian Jews, Georgian-speaking notaries exist in Israel, mainly in Ashdod, Bat Yam, Lod and Beersheba. So for a Georgian document we have two routes: an apostilled Georgian original with its translation done in Georgia, apostille included, and notarised, which for Israel is a foreign public document, or an apostilled Georgian original, which a Georgian-speaking notary in Israel translates and certifies themselves. Which route is shorter depends on the specific authority and the client's location, and we find this out before the order.

Who comes to us for Hebrew translation

• Candidates for repatriation (עלייה) who need the documents of their parents and grandparents to confirm Jewish origin
• Israeli couples who have concluded a civil marriage in Georgia and must register the certificate in Israel
• Georgian Jews living in Israel who have inheritance, real estate or pension matters in Georgia
• Doctors, nurses and pharmacists for a licence from the Ministry of Health (משרד הבריאות)
• Students and researchers at the Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, the Technion, Ben-Gurion and Haifa universities
• Israeli investors and companies that buy real estate in Georgia, build hotels or sell agricultural technology
• Georgian companies with Israeli partners: wine, tourism, IT, medical tourism

Repatriation: Nativ, the Law of Return and the fifth line of the Soviet passport

Israel's Law of Return (חוק השבות) gives the right of repatriation to a Jew, their child, grandchild and their spouses, and for the countries of the former Soviet Union, including Georgia, eligibility is checked by the Nativ service attached to the consulate. Nativ works with originals and requires one chain: the applicant's birth certificate, the parent's birth certificate, the grandmother's or grandfather's birth or marriage certificate, where the nationality "Jewish" is written. Soviet-era Georgian documents are bilingual, Georgian and Russian, and the consular officer reads the Russian text themselves; documents issued or restored after 1991 are in Georgian only, and it is these that need translation. The hardest cases are archive extracts: the civil status records of Oni, Kutaisi, Tskhinvali or Surami, where handwritten text, old spelling and three ways of writing one family's surname meet on one sheet. We translate such a document with all the variants of the original and explain in a note which form corresponds to which record, because for Nativ it is exactly the continuity of the chain that matters most.

Marriage in Tbilisi for Israeli couples

In Israel marriage is registered only by religious institutions, for Jews the Chief Rabbinate, and mixed, non-religious couples or those unacceptable to the Rabbinate conclude their marriage abroad, which Israel then recognises. In the last decade Georgia has become a real alternative to Cyprus in this direction: a visa-free regime, a two-hour flight and the House of Justice, which registers a marriage in one day. Our role is two-way. Before the marriage the Israeli partner needs a population register extract or a certificate of family status for the Georgian authority, with an Israeli apostille and our Georgian translation; after the marriage the Georgian marriage certificate goes with the apostille of the House of Justice and a Hebrew translation to the Population Authority, where the couple changes the family status record. One detail matters here: the Israeli authority compares the spouses' names in the marriage certificate with the Latin record of the passport, while in the Hebrew translation the name must be written as it is in the Israeli identity card, if one exists. So we ask for both documents in advance.

The Hebrew script in translation: vowels that are not written

Hebrew is written from right to left and in ordinary text does not mark vowels: nikud (vowel signs) appears only in prayer books, children's books and poetry. In an official document the name, surname and city are written without vowels, and the same four letters can be read in several ways. When translating an Israeli birth certificate into Georgian we therefore ask for the Latin record of the passport or identity card, which makes the reading unambiguous. In the opposite direction a Georgian name is written in Hebrew by several rules: the sounds zh, ch and j are rendered by Hebrew letters with a geresh (ז׳, צ׳, ג׳), while vowels are often inserted in the so-called full spelling (כתיב מלא), so that an Israeli reads the name correctly. The surnames of Georgian Jews ending in -shvili often already have an established Hebrew form in Israel, sometimes shortened or Hebraised, and in the translation we keep the form already used by the family, not our own transliteration. Hebrew also has grammatical gender, in verbs and adjectives, which Georgian does not, so when translating from Georgian into Hebrew the gender of the text's author and addressee must be established from context, or the document will come out grammatically wrong.

The Hebrew calendar and dates in Rabbinate documents

A marriage certificate issued by the Rabbinate, a ketubah (the Jewish marriage contract), a divorce document (get) and a certificate confirming Jewishness write dates by the Hebrew calendar, often without the Gregorian one, while the ketubah is drawn up in Aramaic, not Hebrew. A Georgian authority cannot read these dates, and in the translation we add the Gregorian equivalent to the Hebrew date, in brackets, as a translator's note; we also take into account that the Hebrew day begins at sunset and one Hebrew date covers two Gregorian days. In the case of a ketubah the traditional formulas of the Aramaic text are translated into Georgian by functional equivalent and explained in a separate note as a religious, not civil, contract; a Georgian notary or judge asks for exactly this when a couple married in Israel starts an inheritance or property case in Georgia.

The Israeli documents we translate most often

• Population register extract (תמצית רישום), which in Israel performs the function of a birth, marriage and address certificate together
• Identity card (תעודת זהות) with the appendix (ספח), where the address, family status and children are written
• Immigrant certificate (תעודת עולה) and certificate of citizenship
• Certificate of no criminal record (תעודת יושר) from the police
• Certificate of discharge from military service (תעודת שחרור), which a Georgian authority often cannot recognise as a document and which needs an explanation
• National Insurance (ביטוח לאומי) certificates on pension, benefits, work record
• Diploma, mark sheet, description of the curriculum, Bagrut (בגרות) certificate
• Court decisions in maintenance, custody and inheritance cases and the inheritance registrar's order (צו ירושה)
• Registrar of Companies (רשם החברות) extract, articles of association, directors' resolution

The Ministry of Health and Georgian doctors

Israel is one of the most natural directions for Georgian doctors: in the families of Georgian Jews the medical profession is traditional, and the healthcare system, with four health funds (קופות חולים), constantly needs staff. A doctor with medical education obtained abroad goes through licensing at the Ministry of Health: an assessment of documents and, for graduates of universities not on the Ministry's recognised list, a licensing examination and supervised internship. Translation is needed at the very first stage: the diploma, the mark sheet with study hours, the internship or residency certificate, the specialty certificate, the Georgian licence and a certificate that it has not been revoked. The Ministry accepts a Hebrew or English translation, but the document package must be in one language. One practical piece of advice that saves our clients time: the Ministry often requires confirmation directly from the university, and we prepare the English version of this letter too, so that Tbilisi State Medical University can send it unchanged.

Education: the Bagrut, the psychometric test and the assessment of a Georgian diploma

The Israeli school certificate (בגרות) is measured in "units" (יחידות) of subjects, from 3 to 5 in each subject, and the mark is out of 100; university admission is by a combination of the Bagrut and the psychometric test. When translating an Israeli certificate or diploma into Georgian we explain the unit system, because for a Georgian recipient "5 units of mathematics" means nothing. In the opposite direction the assessment of a Georgian diploma is carried out by the Ministry of Education's department for the evaluation of foreign academic degrees, which accepts documents in Hebrew or English and often requires confirmation directly from the university too. At the universities, especially the Technion and the Weizmann Institute, international programmes are in English, and there an English translation suffices; for Hebrew-language programmes confirmation of the level of Hebrew is also needed, which the universities' preparatory departments (מכינה) conduct.

Business with Israel: בע"מ, the Registrar of Companies and real estate in Georgia

Israeli investors have been active in Georgian real estate since the 2010s, in the residential and hotel projects of Tbilisi and Batumi, and the documents of these cases move in both directions. An Israeli company (חברה בע"מ, with limited liability) is the analogue of a Georgian LLC, but its Registrar of Companies extract (נסח חברה), articles of association (תקנון) and directors' resolution are translated from Hebrew for the Georgian Public Registry and come with an Israeli apostille. The Georgian side, meanwhile, requires the extract, the sale contract, the power of attorney and the cadastral data in Hebrew or English, often for an Israeli lawyer and bank. The nine-digit number of an Israeli company, which begins with 51 or 52, and the statuses of a sole trader (עוסק מורשה, עוסק פטור) are explained in a note for a Georgian authority. In wine exports to Israel a separate topic is the kosher certificate, issued by the Rabbinate or a private kashrut organisation, whose translation requires precise knowledge of religious terminology.

National Insurance and pensions in two countries

A large part of the Georgian Jews living in Israel settle pension or social status matters in both countries, and here the documents of the National Insurance Institute (ביטוח לאומי) appear: a certificate of work record, a decision on old-age benefit, a disability determination report, a widow's benefit. For Georgia's Pension Agency and Social Service Agency these documents are translated into Georgian, and for the Israeli side the Georgian work book, an archive certificate of work record and a pension certificate into Hebrew. The Soviet work book is the most labour-intensive document: handwritten entries, seals, the names of abolished enterprises and positions that have no equivalent in modern Hebrew. We never abridge this document, because every month of work record changes the amount of the Israeli benefit.

Typical mistakes in Hebrew translation

When checking other people's translations the same mistakes recur: looking for the apostille on a birth certificate at the court and on a notarial translation at the Foreign Ministry; the "probable" reading of a name written without vowels without comparison with the passport; leaving a Hebrew date without the Gregorian one; presenting a ketubah as a civil marriage certificate; omitting the Israeli military certificate because a Georgian authority "cannot recognise" it; re-transliterating a surname ending in -shvili when the family already has an established form in Israel; "correcting" three variants of one surname in an archive extract into one form, after which the chain for Nativ breaks; and certifying a Georgian document with an Israeli notary who does not know Georgian and certifies only the translator's declaration. Each of these items is on our checklist, and the editor checks every Hebrew translation against this list.

What sets our Hebrew translation apart

• We know which Israeli authority accepts which certification, and we tell you this before the order
• Translators who lived or studied in Israel and know the documents of the Rabbinate, the courts and National Insurance
• Correct transfer of Hebrew dates, names written without vowels and the established surnames of Georgian Jews
• Translation of archive and Soviet-era documents for repatriation, keeping the continuity of the chain
• The apostille on the Georgian original at the House of Justice and notarisation of the signature of a translator registered for the Georgian-Hebrew pair in one order
• A standard personal document in 1 working day, by express in 1-2 hours, the process fully remote, from Israel too

Official sources

• Public Service Development Agency: apostille and legalization: which Georgian documents can get an apostille, which cannot, and how long it takes
• Hague Conference: Apostille Convention member states: the current list of countries: apostille or consular legalization
• Hague Conference (HCCH): Israel's apostille authorities (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Magistrates' Court registrars), addresses and official links

Frequently asked questions