An Israeli-born Canadian citizen said in a social-media video that a worker at a passport office in Montreal told her last week that she could not list Israel as her birth country on her passport “because of the political conflict.”
The woman, Anastasia Zorchinsky, a student at Concordia University in Montreal who was born in Kfar Saba, in central Israel, said she was initially confused by the worker’s statement and wanted to know if that was the actual policy of the Canadian government.
After pressing the matter at the passport office, she said, she was able to get Israel listed as her country of birth. The episode appeared to have been the result of worker error, according to the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, a Canadian advocacy group.
“I really do not want this to happen to anybody else, no matter where they were born, no matter where they’re from, and no matter who they are,” Ms. Zorchinsky said in the video.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the agency that oversees Canadian passports, said in a statement on Monday that no changes had been made to passports for people born in Israel. Canadians who were born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip can list Palestine as their birthplace on their passports, the agency said.
The Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs said it had met with officials from the office of the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship of Canada and “it was confirmed that this was the result of an error by a frontline service worker.”
“The government has also assured us that there are no changes to passport issuance for Canadians born in Israel,” David Cooper, the center’s vice president for government relations, said in a statement. “We will continue to monitor situations like these to ensure that Canadians born in Israel are not discriminated against.”
Ms. Zorchinsky’s lawyer, Neil G. Oberman, sent a letter to Canadian officials last week asking for a formal review of the episode, which he said raised “serious legal, administrative and human rights concerns.”
Last year, a woman posted TikTok videos saying that her 90-year-old Palestinian grandmother had been told by a Canadian government representative that her passport would have no country of birth listed, prompting widespread outrage on social media.
In response, Marc Miller, who was then the minister in charge of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, wrote on social media that there had been “no recent changes to the country list available in the Canadian passport application form.”
“If an applicant was born before May 14, 1948, and requests Palestine as their country of birth, they can do so by going into the application drop down menu and clicking on the ‘Other field’ followed by entering ‘Palestine,’” he wrote. “This can also be done by hand, as always.”
Ms. Zorchinsky, the president and founder of the StartUp Nation Montreal, an Israeli student club, is among several Concordia University students who last year filed a lawsuit against the university, accusing it of failing to combat antisemitism on campus. The lawsuit is pending.
Relations have grown strained between Israel and Canada, which in September formally recognized Palestinian statehood and put pressure on Israel to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
At the time, Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada accused the Israeli government of “working methodically to prevent the prospect of a Palestinian state from ever being established.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a statement at the time that leaders who recognized a Palestinian state after the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, were “giving a huge reward to terrorism.” Mr. Netanyahu vowed that a “Palestinian state will not be established west of the Jordan River.”
Michael Levenson covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
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