A Jewish Montreal woman says she was told by a Canadian passport office employee that she could not indicate Israel as her country of birth because it is “a conflict zone.”

Anastasia Zorchinsky is a Canadian citizen but she was born in Kfar Saba, in central Israel. However, she says in a Nov. 13 video posted on X that the official told her because of the “political conflict we cannot put Israel in your passport.”

Alternatively, she was told she could have indicated her birth country as Palestine, and that Kfar Saba was one of several cities that was allegedly caught by this policy shift, including Jerusalem.

Moreover, Zorchinsky was told this was a country-specific restriction – only affecting Israel.

Doubting what she was told, Zorchinsky told National Post in an interview, she asked

See Full Page