03 May, 2006
A Canadian teenager has lost a court challenge to force the federal government to change his passport to show that his birthplace of Jerusalem was part of Israel. The Federal Court ruled that Canada's passport policy is neither discriminatory nor a violation of freedom of religion to refuse to list Israel as the birth country for Eliyahu Yoshua Veffer, a Toronto student. Veffer, the 18-year-old son of a rabbi, was born in the Jerusalem and moved to Canada with his family eight years ago. ''I don't know if he will be prepared to accept this, knowing my son,'' his mother said after the court defeat. ''He was born in Israel and it is part of our identity and he resents being told he does not have a country of birth.'' However, citing the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians over control of Jerusalem the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs stipulates that immigrants who were born there are issued passports without any reference to a country. In his ruling, the judge noted that Israel was an exception to a federal policy that allows passport applicants to list their birth country of choice when dealing with cities in disputed territories. But the judge dismissed Veffer's case nonetheless, writing that a passport was no more than a travel document showing proof of citizenship and that it was not a reflection ''of a person's roots, heritage, or belief."