Eliyahu Yehoshua Veffer’s passport says he was born in Jerusalem 17 years ago, but omits mention of Israel.

“I’m proud to have been born in Israel,” Veffer, a Grade 11 student at Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto, told The CJN. “I don’t see why I can’t have Israel on my passport.”

Veffer, whose father is Rabbi Shmuel Veffer, spiritual leader of the Village Shul, was brought to Canada by his parents six years ago. He’s a citizen of both Canada and Israel, and has an Israeli passport.

He’s offended at a Canadian policy that he feels denies his heritage.

“As the government sees it, I don’t have a birthplace,” he says.

B’nai Brith Canada says there are many Canadians like Veffer – victims of a foreign policy that regards Jerusalem as disputed territory, along with other lands captured by Israel after the 1967 Six Day War.

Veffer’s lawyer last week filed an application for a judicial review of the policy, which he calls discriminatory and politically driven.

Winnipeg-based David Matas, B’nai Brith Canada’s senior legal counsel, says the policy unfairly singles Israel out when there are other places in the world considered disputed territory.

“What about a person born in Kashmir or Tibet?” he asked.

Matas wants Ottawa to get rid of the policy, or for the Federal Court to force the government to change it. He said a challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is one possible course of action.

Matas said the directive is one-sided because it applies only to those born in Jerusalem after the creation of the State of Israel on May 18, 1948.

“Anyone born before that in Jerusalem has a choice,” he explained. “Their place of birth on their passport can be ‘Jerusalem’ or ‘Palestine.’

“It’s blatant discrimination. Why can you have ‘Palestine’ but not ‘Israel?’”

He said his client might be satisfied with the lone designation of Israel as his birthplace. “At least that would remove the inequity.”

Matas said many immigration and border officials in other countries consider passports without a country of birth to be incomplete, and their holders are subjected to added scrutiny.

“People are hassled all the time. There have been a lot of problems.”

Reacting to the challenge, the foreign affairs department provided the following statement to The CJN:

“The Canadian government does allow the inscription of Jerusalem as a place of birth on Canadian passports. However, Canada considers that the status of Jerusalem can be resolved only as part of a general settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict..

“Consequently, neither ‘Jerusalem, Israel’ nor ‘Jerusalem, Palestine’ may be inscribed as place of birth in Canadian passports.

“The government of Canada, at this time, is not considering changing its policy on the inscription of Jerusalem as place of birth in Canadian passports.

“Inscriptions such as ‘Jerusalem, Israel’ would be contrary to Canada’s Middle East policy and to our policy regarding recognition as well as to our obligations under international law, including relevant UN Security Council resolutions.”

While the statement says nothing about the lone designation of “Palestine,” a Dec. 21, 2004 letter from the Passport Office to Veffer’s Toronto lawyer does.

The letter, signed by Nick Wise, acting chief executive officer of the Passport Office, says Canada “has established that designation for individuals born in Jerusalem be indicated as Jerusalem alone and in full in the Canadian passport.”

There is, however, “one exception for individuals born before May 14, 1948. Upon request, ‘Palestine’ may be written instead of ‘Jerusalem.’”

To Matas, that underscores his argument of discrimination.

The letter also explained that place of birth on Canadian passports is determined by the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization, which maintains country lists for the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency that “establishes the standards for international travel documents.”

Matas said it’s not clear from the letter whether Canada determines its own policy or whether it follows rules set by international agencies.

He said the United States, and probably the European Union, employ the same policy as Canada.

A U.S. law passed in 2003 says that an American citizen born in Jerusalem may have Israel listed in their passport as their place of birth. At the time, the White House said it would interpret the law’s section on Jerusalem as “advisory.”

Last August, a court in Washington, D.C. dismissed lawsuits from two American-Israeli couples who wanted Israel designated as the country of birth on the passports of their Jerusalem-born children.

The court said it did not have jurisdiction over the case since the designation of Israel on a passport was a political matter.

It also said the plaintiffs “suffered no injury.”

However, the judge’s decision had political overtones. She said the plaintiffs’ arguments “border on the disingenuous.”

The status of Jerusalem, the judge stated, “is without question one of the most sensitive foreign policy issues to have confronted the world in recent years…To argue that this is merely a routine administrative issue ignores the last 50 to 60 years of violence in the Middle East. The question at hand involves the authority to recognize sovereigns and conduct foreign policy, not the bureaucratic procedures for issuance of passports.”