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‘Jerusalem’ rejected as baby name

City hall in Belgium tells Israeli expat couple they can’t name their daughter after their country’s capital

By JTA 20 August 2013, 5:17 pm 42

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The Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem's Old City, with Mughrabi Ascent bridge in foreground (Nati Shohat/Flash90)

The city of Brussels refused to register the name of a locally born Israeli baby because Jerusalem does not appear on a list of approved names for children born in the country.

Hagar and Alinadav Hyman, Israelis who have lived and worked in Brussels for the last three years, decided to name their first-born Alma Jerusalem.

“We are both Jerusalemites, we grew up in Jerusalem, we met in Jerusalem and we very much miss the city, so we decided to call our first child Jerusalem,” Alinadav Hyman told JSSNews.

The Brussels city hall offered to compromise, telling the couple that if they obtained an official letter from the Israeli embassy confirming that Jerusalem is a valid name, it would issue a Belgian birth certificate for the baby.

Hagar Hyman told JSSNews that the clerk told him the name Bethlehem appeared on the list of approved names. He also said a Finnish man in line next to him gave his child a name in his local tongue that was 25 letters long.