* The U.S. Embassy in Israel reportedly revoked a death report for an American citizen that listed the place of death as “Jerusalem, Israel.” The Jerusalem Post reported that Wendy Serlin of Beit Shemesh received a letter earlier this month from the embassy, revoking its death report for her father, Myron Friedman, who died in 2002. The report sent to Serlin shortly after Friedman’s passing listed the place of death as “Jerusalem, Israel.” Serlin says the report was revoked for political reasons: The U.S. Congress passed an act in 1995 stating that the United States should recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but Presidents Clinton and Bush have invoked a security waiver to delay moving the embassy to Jerusalem for fear of angering Muslims. The revocation followed a separate case in which Serlin’s neighbors, Naomi and Ari Zivotofsky, filed a suit against the U.S. State Department in 2003, demanding that their son’s place of birth be listed as “Jerusalem, I srael” and submitting Friedman’s death report as evidence. Shortly thereafter, the embassy sent Serlin new paperwork for her father’s death, with the word “Israel” deleted, the Post wrote. U.S. officials would not comment.
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.