Supreme Court Set To Hear Jerusalem Passport Case
The U.S. Supreme Court was scheduled to hear arguments in a case that would allow American citizens born in Jerusalem to have their birthplace listed as Israel on their passports.
Arguments in the case of Zivotofsky v. Clinton were set to be heard Monday. The case involves 9-year-old Menachem Zivotofsky, whose American-Israeli parents, Ari and Naomi, want the birth country on his passport listed as Israel. They cite a law passed by Congress in 2002 that directs the secretary of state, “upon the request of the citizen or the citizen’s legal guardian, [to] record the place of birth as Israel.”
The George W. Bush and Obama administrations have ignored the law and the State Department manual allows that the passports of American citizens born in Jerusalem must say “Jerusalem” as the place of birth and not include Israel, reflecting official U.S. government policy regarding the unresolved status of Jerusalem.
Eleven major Jewish American groups in August filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the Zivotofsky’s request. Last month, Americans for Peace Now filed a brief supporting the secretary of state.
The American Jewish Committee has opted not to weigh in, in part because it does not regard the Supreme Court as the appropriate forum to decide foreign policy.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO