I was just in the embassy in Tel Aviv today to register our new daughter, Gila (it is much nicer there than in Jerusalem, by the way). As instructed, I copied down the city and country of her birth onto the Report of Birth Abroad form. Since she was born in Shaarei Tzedek hospital, this means that she was born in Jerusalem, Israel. When we got called up to the window and I handed over the form, the very first thing that the nice lady behind the counter did was to some white-out tape, and use it to erase Israel as the country of Gila’s birth. This is because according to the US State Department, Jerusalem is not part of Israel. (Sigh)
June 23rd, 2009 at 17:34
We had a similar result with our child born in Efrat, as told by Shimshonit. Although they did wait until we were out of the room before applying the white-out. At least it isn’t listed as “West Bank” in the passport!
August 5th, 2009 at 5:43
This is quite a disgusting state of affairs, I am surprised more people aren’t up in arms about this issue that has gone on for too long.
October 10th, 2009 at 22:45
What do they write as a country of birth, then?
October 12th, 2009 at 0:58
No country of birth. Just “Jerusalem”