‘Palestine or nothing’ – Canada refuses to mark ‘Israel’ as place of birth

Attorney blows whistle after Canadian passport clerk refuses to allow woman with dual Israeli-Canadian citizenship to list her country of birth on her travel documents.

By World Israel News Staff

A Canadian Jewish woman was told she could not list the country of her birth on her travel documents due to the “political conflict” involving the Jewish state, sparking criticism of Canada’s passport authority.

Last Monday, Anastasia Zorchinsky published a video on X revealing that a clerk at Passport Canada had refused to allow her to list Israel as her place of birth, saying it was in a “conflict zone” and thus not permitted on Canadian travel documents.

Zorchinsky, a resident of Montreal, was born in the city of Kfar Saba, in central Israel, and is a dual citizen of Israel and Canada.

In her passport application, Zorchinsky listed her place of birth as “Kfar Saba, Israel.”

However, a female clerk informed Zorchinsky that Israel could not be listed under her place of birth, though the city, Kfar Saba, could be included.

While Kfar Saba is well within the Green Line – marking Israel’s pre-1967 boundaries – the clerk nevertheless insisted Zorchinsky would have to either list her place of birth simply as the city Kfar Saba, without a country named, or list her country of birth as “Palestine.”

“Because of the political conflict, we cannot put Israel on your passport,” the clerk said, according to Zorchinsky.

Unwilling to back down, Zorchinsky requested documentation for the policy barring her from listing Israel as her place of birth.

A second passport clerk said that due to the Canadian government’s recent decision to recognize unilateral Palestinian statehood, Zorchinsky could not list Israel in her passport, claiming that Kfar Saba was on a list of cities which Canada now recognizes as belonging to “Palestine.”

Other cities included on the list were Jerusalem and Ramla – both parts of the State of Israel.

Eventually, Zorchinsky said, the passport office quietly dropped its objections and permitted her to include Israel on her travel documents.

Attorney Neil G. Oberman, a representative of Zorchinsky, filed a complaint with Canada’s passport service program, the office where Zorchinsky applied for a passport, and with Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Minister Lena Diab.

“Our client, a Canadian citizen, was told that her place of birth—Kfar Saba, Israel—could not appear on her passport “because of the political conflict,” Oberman wrote on X, demanding the Canadian government intervene to ensure no similar incidents occur in the future.

“No law supports this. No regulation authorizes it. No democracy should tolerate it. Passports are not political documents. They are instruments of identity and equality before the state.”

“When administrative discretion crosses into discrimination, the rule of law itself is fractured. Canada must do better. Accountability starts with transparency and training,” he wrote.