The Supreme Court convened Nov. 7 to ponder the implications of a single word that is conspicuously missing from the passport of a 9-year-old boy born in Jerusalem.
Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky is the son of Ari and Naomi Siegman Zivotofsky, Americans who made aliyah in 2000. They flew from Israel and were at the high court this week to hear the arguments in the case.
Menachem was born at Shaare Zedek Hospital in western Jerusalem, but due to a controversial State Department policy, his U.S. passport does not designate “Israel” as his place of birth — despite a federal statute enacted by Congress in 2002 that says Americans born in Jerusalem are entitled to have Israel listed on their official papers as their birth country.
The Zivotofskys want that law enforced so their son can claim what they feel is his birthright — the inclusion of the word “Israel” on his passport, a statement “that the land of Israel has centrality for the Jewish people,” the boy’s father, Ari Zivotofsky, told reporters after the court session. “It’s a very personal issue,” he said.
The Obama administration says the passport policy is in line with longstanding U.S. foreign policy that says the status of Jerusalem should be resolved in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
A decision on the case is not expected for several months.
The arguments and counterarguments presented before the high court focused on several key issues, including which branch of government has the authority to conduct foreign policy and whether the appearance of the word “Israel” on a passport is in fact tantamount to an expression of foreign policy.
The petitioners maintain that Menachem is one of an estimated 50,000 Jerusalem-born American citizens who have been unfairly barred from listing their place of birth as “Jerusalem, Israel,” rather than simply “Jerusalem.”
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the named respondent in the Zivotofskys’ litigation, has argued that the State Department’s regulations governing the passport designation of Jerusalem-born American citizens have rightly served to maintain U.S. neutrality on the sensitive issue of sovereignty over Jerusalem. The Zivotofskys contend the policy is biased against Israel and Jews with a religious attachment to the land.
“Congress recognized that with regard to the 50,000 people who have a passport that says ‘Jerusalem,’ they are being denied a certain sense of self-respect that they feel they should be able to have in terms of their own identification,” attorney Nathan Lewin, representing the Zivotofskys, told the court in response to a question from Justice Samuel Alito. “This is not a statute that is designed to create some political brouhaha or make a foreign policy statement.”
The State Department has contended that if American citizens who are natives of Jerusalem are permitted to self-identify as being born in Israel, that would create the misperception among Arab states that U.S. policy on the sovereignty of Jerusalem had changed, which in turn could have serious foreign policy repercussions.
The Justice Department says the U.S. has consistently declined to recognize any nation’s sovereignty over Jerusalem since Israel’s creation in 1948.
At one point, Lewin noted that the State Department already gives people born before 1948 the option to say they were born in Palestine. The youngest justice, Elena Kagan, born in 1960, chimed in. “Well, you have to be very old to say Palestine.”
That brought a quick response from the oldest justice, one of four born before 1948. “Not all that old,” said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 78.
On the courthouse plaza, Ari Zivotofsky, 48, answered reporters’ questions as Menachem tried to shun the limelight. It was the boy’s first visit to the United States. Asked for his impressions, Menachem said: “It’s bigger than I thought … but it’s not as fun as I thought it would be.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.