Israel Police are hunting for a 20-year-old Jerusalem woman accused of taking her two young children from Canada to Israel and then vanishing. Investigators identified her as Aliya Joy Hirschberg. Police believe she and the children, now three and one, may still be in the Jerusalem area, nearly a year after she disappeared with them. The Jerusalem Post first reported the case Monday, citing Israel Police.
Hirschberg holds Israeli citizenship, an Israeli passport and an Israeli identity card. Her husband holds none of those documents, a divide that is likely to shape how far Israel’s legal system can reach to bring the children back, and how fast.
A Marriage Split in Canada, Then Silence
The couple had been living alternately in Canada and the United States, according to police. Following an argument between them in Canada, Hirschberg allegedly took the children and traveled with them to Israel. Investigators say she entered the country in August 2025 and that her whereabouts, and the children’s, have been unknown since.
Neither the specific Canadian province nor the U.S. state where the family lived has been disclosed. Police have not detailed what the argument was about, only that it preceded the trip to Israel.
How Did a Father’s Search Reach Jerusalem Police?
A private investigator hired by the husband failed to find the family, so he turned to welfare authorities and local government officials, who eventually brought in police. That referral chain, run through Israeli welfare and municipal channels before any police file existed, explains why the disappearance became public only now, roughly eleven months after it began.
Investigators at the Jerusalem District’s Lev Habira police station opened a formal investigation once they received a complaint against the mother. Police are now asking the public for help and have released a photo of Hirschberg. Anyone with information has been asked to contact two numbers.
- The Israel Police emergency hotline at 100, for immediate tips on the family’s location.
- The investigating unit directly at 02-5391550, for anyone with more detailed information.
Police say they believe the mother and children are still somewhere in the Jerusalem area, though nothing about the past eleven months has been confirmed publicly.
One Passport, Not Two
The citizenship gap between the two parents is not a footnote. It is the fact most likely to define what happens next. Hirschberg’s Israeli papers give her a legal foothold, a language, and a claim to belonging that her husband cannot match inside Israel’s courts or its bureaucracy. The U.S. State Department’s own country-specific guidance on Hague abduction cases in Israel flags exactly this kind of asymmetry as a recurring complication for foreign parents pursuing a return.
| Status | Aliya Joy Hirschberg | Her Husband |
|---|---|---|
| Citizenship | Israeli citizen | Not an Israeli citizen |
| Israeli documents held | Passport and identity card | None |
| Residence before August 2025 | Split between Canada and the United States | Split between Canada and the United States |
| Action since the disappearance | Suspected of staying out of contact with the children inside Israel | Hired a private investigator, then contacted welfare and government officials |
That table is also a rough map of leverage. She can work, bank, and move through Israel as a citizen. He needs a lawyer, a translator, and a foreign court to even be heard.
A Legal System Built Over Three Decades
Israel joined the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction as the 1990s began, becoming a treaty partner with the United States on December 1, 1990, and writing the pact into its own domestic law about a year later. Canada is also a longtime treaty partner. Together the two countries sit among the more than one hundred states on the State Department’s current list of Hague treaty partner countries, a network built specifically to stop parents from using a border as a custody strategy.
The State Department released its 2025 tally of international parental abduction cases earlier this year, part of an annual count Congress has required since the law creating it took effect. Israel has not been singled out in that reporting as a country that refuses returns outright. The friction, case after case, shows up somewhere else: in how long the process takes once a petition is actually filed.
- A parent, or the Central Authority in the country the children came from, files a return petition through Israel’s own Central Authority, housed inside the Ministry of Justice.
- The petition moves to a Family Court, which is supposed to hear it on an emergency docket rather than under ordinary civil timelines.
- The Convention’s own text calls on courts to rule within six weeks of filing, though contested cases regularly run past that mark.
- Judges can refuse a return only in narrow circumstances, chiefly a grave risk of harm to the child.
None of that machinery can start, though, until Hirschberg is actually found.
Why Nationality Rarely Settles These Fights
Under the Convention, a judge is supposed to ask where a child habitually lived, not which passports that child or its parents carry. That distinction matters here because the couple split time between two countries before the trip to Israel, which could leave a judge to first decide whether Canada, the United States, or neither was the children’s true home base before any return order can even be considered.
Dual citizenship complicates that math further. If the children hold Israeli citizenship through their mother, a common outcome under Israeli nationality law for children born to an Israeli parent, that status still should not override the habitual-residence test on paper. In practice, family law attorneys who handle these cases describe nationality as a factor that slows negotiations even when it cannot legally decide them. Canada’s own consular service publishes guidance for parents fighting abduction cases abroad, warning that a left-behind parent typically pays their own legal costs and hires local counsel to even begin.
The Exit Ban Now on File
Police have secured an order barring Hirschberg from leaving Israel while the investigation continues, a domestic step that only works once someone locates her. It does not, by itself, return the children to their father or resolve custody. It simply closes one exit while investigators keep looking.
- Before August 2025: Hirschberg and her husband, who split time between Canada and the United States, have an argument in Canada, according to police.
- August 2025: Hirschberg travels to Israel with the couple’s two children and cuts off contact, police said.
- In the months that follow: Her husband hires a private investigator, then turns to welfare authorities and local officials once that search stalls.
- Ahead of July 27, 2026: Officials refer the case to the Jerusalem District’s Lev Habira police station, which opens an investigation and secures the exit ban.
- July 27, 2026: Israel Police make the case public, releasing Hirschberg’s photo and appealing for tips.
Hirschberg has not surfaced since the file opened, and the two children have not been seen in public since last August.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is the Hague Abduction Convention?
It is a 1980 treaty that lets a parent ask a foreign court to return a child to the country the child habitually lived in, separate from any criminal case. The process runs through each country’s Central Authority and its own family courts, not through police extradition.
How Long Do Hague Convention Cases Take in Israel?
The treaty text calls for a ruling within six weeks of a petition being filed, and Israel routes these cases through an emergency Family Court track built for that speed. Contested cases, especially ones involving appeals or disputed habitual residence, commonly run well beyond six weeks in practice.
Does a Child’s Israeli Citizenship Change Who Gets Them Back?
Not legally. The Convention instructs judges to weigh where a child habitually lived, not their nationality, so a child’s Israeli citizenship should not by itself block a return order. Attorneys who handle these cases say it still shapes how quickly a family can be located and how a case unfolds once found.
Which Israeli Authority Handles These Cases?
The Department of International Affairs at the State Attorney’s Office, inside Israel’s Ministry of Justice, serves as the country’s Central Authority for Hague cases and coordinates with the Family Courts that ultimately rule on them.
What Happens if Hirschberg Is Located in Israel?
Cases like this one typically split onto two tracks: a criminal review tied to the abduction complaint already filed at Lev Habira, and a separate civil case if her husband petitions Israel’s Family Courts for the children’s return under the Hague Convention. The exit ban would keep her inside Israel while both tracks play out.
