After more than four years of litigation instituted by the American Jewish Congress, the United States Court of Appeals has restored the U. S. citizenship of Mcrris Mendelsohn, a naturalized American who has been stranded in Israel since 1936, the AJC announced today.
Mendelssohn went to Palestine in 1936 to manage orange groves owned by his father. In 1940 Congress passed the Nationality Act which revokes the citizenship of naturalized Americans if they stay out of the U.S. continuously for more than five years, Due to war conditions, financial reverses and the serious illness of his wife, Mendelsohn was prevented from returning to the U.S. and the State Department cancelled his passport and refused him permission to enter the U.S.
The AJC raised the issue of discrimination in the Nationality Act, pointing out that native-born Americans could not be stripped of their citizenship for residing abroad for more than five years. The Court of Appeals upheld Mendelsohn failed to rule on the larger issue raised by the AJC. While the AJC hailed the decision as modifying the “harshness of the scope of the statute, “it was disappointed over the courts failure to act on the Constitutional issue and pointed out that the statute now a part of the McCarran Act, “will perpetuate discrimination against naturalized Americans.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
