| name | olim-essential-contacts |
| description | Build a starter set of Israeli contacts for someone who has recently arrived — which offices they will actually need in the first year, in what order, and what each entry has to record to be useful to someone who does not yet read Hebrew or know how the agencies are divided up. Use when setting up a phonebook for a new immigrant, or when the user asks which Israeli offices they should have saved. |
A starter phonebook for a new arrival
The problem this addresses is not that the numbers are hard to find. It is that
the bureaucracy is divided along lines that make no sense until you have already
been through it, so a new arrival does not know which office to call, and the
number they eventually find turns out to be a call centre that answers in
Hebrew for four hours a day.
Work from the user's situation, not from a list
Ask what applies before saving anything. The set differs enormously between an
oleh with children, a returning resident, someone arriving to a job, and someone
arriving without one. Saving twenty contacts that do not apply buries the four
that do.
The recurring ones, in roughly the order they come up:
| When | Office | Why it is confusing |
|---|
| Week one | Population and Immigration Authority — משרד הפנים | Teudat zehut and the ספח. Appointment-only, and the wait is weeks. |
| Week one | Ministry of Aliyah and Integration — משרד העלייה והקליטה | Sal klita and the absorption basket. A different ministry from the one above, which surprises people. |
| Week one–two | Health fund — קופת חולים | You must pick one. Registration goes through Bituach Leumi or the post office, not the fund. |
| Week two | Bituach Leumi — ביטוח לאומי | Both the insurer and the benefits agency. Health insurance registration happens here. |
| Month one | Bank | Branch-level, not national — the branch is the unit that matters. |
| Month one | Municipality — עירייה | Arnona, and arnona discounts for olim. Its call centre short code varies by city. |
| As needed | Employment Service — לשכת התעסוקה | Required for some benefits. |
| As needed | Tax Authority — רשות המסים | Only if self-employed or claiming. |
| Ongoing | Kol Zchut — כל זכות | Not an office. A rights wiki with Arabic and Russian editions and an עולים portal. Save the URL; it explains what the offices will not. |
Save each through the save-israeli-contact skill so the entries carry the
same field vocabulary as the rest of the phonebook.
What matters more than usual for a new arrival
Three fields carry most of the value, and all three are the ones a generic
contact record has no room for:
Languages — and be precise about where. "English at the counter but not on
the phone line" is the difference between going alone and bringing someone to
translate. Record only what the source states; a wrongly promised English
service is worse than no entry, because it is acted on.
Bring — Israeli counters turn people away over a missing ספח, a missing
original, or a photocopy where an original was wanted. For someone who does not
yet know what a ספח is, this field is the entry.
Dial Notes — a new arrival is the most likely person to have a foreign SIM
still in the handset, or to be calling from abroad before arriving. 1-800 and
1-700 numbers will not connect for them, and neither will a star number. Every
starter entry should either carry a geographic 0X fallback or say plainly that
none exists.
Also worth stating in Purpose, in plain language, is what the office actually
does — "teudat zehut and passports", not "citizen services". The agency's own
description assumes you already know how it is carved up.
Naming
File each under the name the person will be told, not the name on the
letterhead. Someone directed to "Misrad HaPnim" will not find a contact called
"Population and Immigration Authority". Put the colloquial name in the display
name and the formal one in organization; both are searchable.
Include a Latin-script name on every entry. A phonebook that can only be
searched by typing Hebrew is not usable on every device, and not by the person
it was built for.
What not to do
Do not save emergency short codes as contacts. 100, 101, 102 are three
digits and reach from any Israeli handset without a phonebook. Telling the user
they exist is worth doing once; filling their contacts with them is not.
Do not populate from memory. Hours, and sometimes numbers, will be wrong, and a
starter phonebook full of plausible-looking invented hours is actively harmful
to someone with no way to sanity-check it. Fetch each one, or save the entry
with the hours left empty and say so.
