US Supreme Court to Hear Case If Jerusalem Birth Can be Recorded

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal by an American couple that their eight-year old son Menachem’s birthplace be recorded as Jerusalem, Israel. The court only accepts approximately 100 cases a year.

Unlike the judicial system in Israel, the American Supreme Court does not act as a court of appeal except n cases that involve a question of whether the law has been interpreted properly.

The State Department has refused a request by Ari and Naomi Sideman Zivotofsky, whose appeal was rejected by a federal court on the grounds that their complaint involved a “political question" that is not to be decided judicially.  

Congress passed a law in 2002, one month before Menachem was born, ordering the State Department to record Jerusalem, Israel on birth certificates if such a request is made. The State Department has stood by its claim that the issue is a matter of policy as such, is under the jurisdiction of  the Executive Branch.

Read the rest of this story on: Arutz7