It is safe to assume that you have never heard of Menachem Zivotofsky. In fact, there is no particular reason for you to know the name of the boy born 10 years ago in Jerusalem, except that his parents filed a lawsuit against the US State Department.
The family’s demand that it be allowed to identify Menachem’s birthplace as “Jerusalem, Israel” has far broader implications than the boy’s personal status and that of some 50,000 additional American citizens born in Jerusalem. It was also intended to affect US foreign policy by forcing the US president and his administration to recognize both parts of Jerusalem as a city in the state of Israel and as its capital. This week, on July 23, however, after a lengthy legal process, three judges on a US federal court of appeals ruled that "the President exclusively holds the power to determine whether to recognize a foreign sovereign.” President Barack Obama, as we know, has not yet changed the traditional US view of Jerusalem's status.
