Olmert headed the Israeli government between 2006 and 2008, and was succeeded by current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2009.
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Mr. Olmert, who is 70 years old, is the first Israeli prime minister to serve time in prison.
Unlike other prisoners, Olmert will not have contact with numerous inmates.
“I hope that then many will recognize that during my term as prime minister honest and promising attempts were made to create an opening for hope and a better future of peace, happiness and well-being”, he said.
His prison sentence could still be extended further.
Olmert was assigned to a small wing of the prison, where he will be segregated for security reasons from the general population along with co-defendants in the real estate scandal. “You may well imagine how this transformation is painful and odd to me”, Olmert said in a short video released to the press Monday morning, shortly before he departed for the prison.
“With a very heavy heart, I’m accepting my sentence today”.
Olmert had his initial six-year sentence cut by Israel’s Supreme Court in December. Olmert will be serving a term of at least 19 months, for his convictions in the Holyland construction project scandal, in which the court said that he had illegally approved the apartment project in the Malcha neighborhood of Yerushalayim in exchange for favors.
The plea deal represented the first admission of wrongdoing by the former prime minister and Jerusalem mayor, who has consistently maintained his innocence throughout eight years of legal proceedings in various graft cases.
He can keep up to 1,500 shekels in cash; he is also allowed religious articles such as tefillin, a prayer shawl, and religious books.
Deri returned to the interior ministry in January 2016, after his predecessor Silvan Shalom resigned over allegations of sexual harassment.
Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto, head of the Shuvu Yisrael sect, who was convicted of trying to give bribes to police Brig, is to start his one year jail sentence on Tuesday, but a decision on Sunday ordered that he serve his time at the medical center of the Israel Prison Service (IPS) due to his health condition.
Olmert won global acclaim for re-launching peace efforts with the Palestinians at the Annapolis conference in the United States in 2007, but the corruption charges against him have come to define his legacy.
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Before taking over as premier in 2006, Olmert was recognised as a key strategist behind many of Sharon’s boldest moves, including Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and his decision to leave Likud and form Kadima.
