How does Israeli child support work when the paying parent has children from more than one relationship?

Section 3(a) of the 1959 Law routes the maintenance duty through the parties’ personal religious law, with the statute filling the gaps where that law imposes none. For Jewish parents this historically placed an absolute duty on the father for children up to the age of six. The Supreme Court’s decision in BAM 919/15, handed down in 2017, reframed the position for children aged six to fifteen as a joint parental duty apportioned according to each parent’s income and the time each spends with the child. A court facing a payer with two sets of children starts from the documented needs of each child, then tests affordability across the whole picture. Judges are markedly reluctant to let a later relationship dilute an earlier obligation, on the reasoning that the payer took on the new commitment with the existing one already in place.

A parent living abroad cannot lower payments unilaterally. Arrears build up with linkage and interest and are collected through the Execution Office or, where the receiving parent claims it, through the National Insurance Institute, which then pursues the payer. The correct route is an application to vary the order in the Family Court that issued it, supported by payslips, tax assessments, and a full account of the second household’s costs. See the guide to modifying child custody and support orders in Israel for the evidential threshold. In practice courts often leave the first order untouched where the payer’s earnings have risen since it was made, and they treat a new spouse’s income as relevant to household costs even though that spouse owes the earlier children nothing.

From the full guide: Child Support in Israel: How Courts Calculate the Amount

← Browse all Q&A