The National Council of Young Israel network of synagogue congregations has announced its support for a U.S. Senate bill -- the Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act of 2009 -- that would require the government to move its Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The bill would eliminate the loophole that has allowed the president for the past 14 years to sidestep a law mandating the move.
A presidential waiver was built into the Jerusalem Embassy Law of 1995 that would otherwise have required the government to move the embassy to Israel's capital city. The waiver has been routinely reactivated every six months by each president since the law was passed. "It is preposterous for the U.S. Embassy to remain in Tel Aviv rather than in Jerusalem, when every other American Embassy throughout the world is found in those nations' capital cities," noted NCYI President Shlomo Mostofsky.