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Supreme Court to Rule on Citizenship of Jew Who Had Voted in Israel

October 26, 1966
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The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to rule on whether the United States Government can deprive a Polish-born Jew of his American citizenship because he voted in an Israeli election.

The court granted the petition to review the case of Beys Afroyim, 73, who was stripped of his status as a naturalized American citizen by a Federal District Court, after he voted in 1951 in an election for the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament. Mr. Afroyim had emigrated to the United States, and became a citizen in 1926.

The New York Civil Liberties Union, which is sponsoring his appeal as a test case, contends that the Immigration and Nationality Act is unconstitutional in purporting to deprive a person of his citizenship by the act of voting, unless the citizen intends to give up his citizenship.

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