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The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday in a case testing whether American citizens born in Jerusalem can list Israel as their place of birth on their passports. It might sound like an academic question, but the status of Jerusalem is at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East.

Ever since the founding of Israel, the U.S. has taken the position that no country has sovereignty over Jerusalem until its status is negotiated in a Middle East peace deal. Israel's supporters in Congress, however, have tried to force a different policy, seeking to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and mandating that the U.S. Department of State allow U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem to list Israel as their place of birth. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, however, have refused to comply with the passport mandate, contending it infringes on the president's foreign policy powers.

Law

Supreme Court To Consider Case On Passports Of Jerusalem-Born Citizens

Challenging that position is a 12-year-old boy named Menachem Zivotofsky, born in Jerusalem to American parents who emigrated to Israel and maintain dual citizenship. He and his parents want his passport to say he was born in Israel, not Jerusalem.

"I'm an Israeli, and I want people to know that I'm glad that I'm an Israeli," the young Zivotofsky said Monday on the steps of the Supreme Court.

The Issue Of Recognition

Inside the Supreme Court chamber, it was a weird day from the get-go. The hands on the clock were so out of whack that at one point, they were literally spinning. And when the justices walked to their places on the bench, Justice Sonia Sotomayor had to move aside Justice Stephen Breyer, who was about to sit in her seat by mistake.

It was an omen of an even stranger argument. The court's most conservative members, all of whom made their professional bones in Republican administrations aggressively advocating for executive power, seemed now quite hostile to executive powers that date back to George Washington's time. And the court's three Jewish justices seemed pretty unsympathetic to the Jewish plaintiffs.

Representing the Zivotofskys, lawyer Alyza Lewin argued that identifying an American citizen born in Jerusalem as born in Israel does not mean the U.S. is recognizing Jerusalem as part of Israel. It simply recognizes a choice of identity made by an individual.

Justice Elena Kagan was skeptical, noting that such a choice is not available to anyone else in the world — not to citizens of Northern Ireland who might want to list their place of birth as Ireland, and not even to Palestinians born after 1948 in Jerusalem who might want to list Palestine as their place of birth. This, she opined, "is a rather selective vanity plate law."

Justice Anthony Kennedy repeatedly suggested that the way to avoid the recognition problem could be for the State Department to put a disclaimer on the passport saying the United States is not recognizing Jerusalem as part of Israel.

But in response to a question, Zivotofsky's lawyer acknowledged that such a disclaimer could be voided by Congress.

Tough Questions For Government's Lawyer

The most hostile questioning of the day was aimed at the government's advocate, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who sought to convince the court that upholding the passport mandate would undermine the president's foreign policy power, particularly the executive power to recognize foreign governments.

If this statute was such a "big deal," Chief Justice John Roberts asked, why did President Bush sign it?

Verrilli noted that President Bush signed the giant foreign aid measure to which the passport language was attached but issued a statement saying he would not enforce the provision. Even with that caveat, Verrilli observed, the signing provoked massive demonstrations in Jerusalem, some turning violent, and the Palestinian Parliament voted for the first time to declare Jerusalem the capital of the Palestinian state.

Chief Justice Roberts responded, "That's partly because the executive branch made such a big deal out of it" by litigating the question instead of just "moving on."

Verrilli, seeking to illustrate why passports are so integral to foreign policy, noted that if the U.S. were to start issuing passports to people born in Crimea who identified Russia as their country of birth, that too would contradict American foreign policy. That, he said, is why recognition of foreign countries "is not lawmaking; it is an executive function" under the Constitution.

Justice Antonin Scalia interjected that "war-making is an executive function, too."

Verrilli replied that when the framers wrote the Constitution, they put in a "specific role" for Congress in declaring war, but "did not provide a comparable role with respect to recognition decisions."

It's important for the court to understand, the solicitor general said, that a decision upholding the passport mandate would pose a serious risk to the nation's credibility.

"Why would that be so?" Justice Samuel Alito interrupted. "No matter how this court decides, everyone will know what the position of the president is."

It won't be "just one branch" of the U.S. government calling Jerusalem part of Israel, Verrilli responded. It will be two branches. And because that is contrary to the long-held position of the United States, the nation's credibility as an honest broker will be "called into question."

Moments later, Justice Kagan had this caustic observation about some of the questions posed by her colleagues: "This seems a particularly unfortunate week to be making this kind of, 'Oh, it's no big deal' argument. History suggests that everything is a big deal with respect to the status of Jerusalem." Right now, she continued, the city is a "tinderbox" because access was for a time cut off to a particular holy site there. When it comes to questions involving every aspect of Jerusalem," she said, "everything matters, doesn't it?"

Jerusalem

Palestine

Israel

Supreme Court

At a small exhibit at the Historical Museum of Crete, a visiting artist gazes at an early religious painting by El Greco.

"The Baptism of Christ" is a vividly colored, two-dimensional, egg tempera-on-panel work from the second half of the 16th century. But it already showed hints of the style that would later make him one of the Western world's most famous painters.

Sophia Vorontzova, a Russian artist now living in Germany, calls it his "signature in art."

"These longer forms, the colors, and for that time, for his time, I think it is very extraordinary," she says, pointing around the two-room exhibit. "You feel like El Greco was so interested in [telling a] story no one else saw."

The painter had mixed fortunes in life, but his works are being celebrated this year in Crete and in Spain on the 400th anniversary of his death.

El Greco was born Domenikos Theotokopoulos in Crete in 1541 and information about his early life is sketchy at best. What is known is based on a few documents and three Byzantine icons he painted, says Nicos Hadjinicolaou, an art historian and professor emeritus at the University of Crete who has written several books and studies on El Greco.

Hadjinicolaou says the evidence shows Theotokopoulos was already an established icon painter in his early 20s.

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The Baptism of Christ by Domenikos Theotokopoulos, commonly known as El Greco is displayed at Christies auctioneers in London in 2004. Ian Waldie/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Ian Waldie/Getty Images

The Baptism of Christ by Domenikos Theotokopoulos, commonly known as El Greco is displayed at Christies auctioneers in London in 2004.

Ian Waldie/Getty Images

"We know that in 1563, he was a master, he had the title of a master, which means that he had a workshop, which means he had people working for him," he says.

Hadjinicolaou says there's also evidence that Theotokopoulos was married and perhaps even had children.

But because so little can be verified about the artist's life on Crete, the Greeks have gotten a little creative with it. The 2007 film El Greco, for instance, depicts him as a melodramatic young genius from a politically rebellious family who dance like warriors at funerals. (More galling for El Greco aficionados is the film's claim that he was persecuted during the Spanish Inquisition, something that never happened.)

Claims to El Greco

In northern Crete, a village of orange farmers called Fodele claims it is the painter's birthplace, even though a court document shows that he stated he was born in the city of Candia (modern-day Iraklion) about 17 miles away.

Village president Yiannis Fakoukais says Spanish academics declared Fodele as the painter's birthplace a century ago. Fakoukakis says Theotokopoulos even has descendants in Fodele.

"This is what generations of people here have lived and died knowing," he says. "People talk about us, books are written about us, and why should some document erase that?"

Each year, Fodele attracts busloads of tourists who visit a small museum that villagers claim is the painter's childhood home. The humble stone house, restored with money from the Greek government, is decorated with copies of his works and yellowed newspaper clippings of villagers declaring their relation to him.

The village also has a cafe called Domenicos and a taverna called El Greco. Even Maria Thanasa's olive-oil products shop profits from the association.

"Of course Domenikos Theotokopoulos helps us economically," she says. "Because we have tourists. And the restaurants work, the cafes work, even the women who make macrame work."

Hadjinicolaou, the art historian, says the fuss is more about Greek identity than El Greco himself.

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Cafe Domenico in Fodele, Greece, which claims to be El Greco's hometown, though documents suggest he was born in another town nearby. Joanna Kakissis for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Joanna Kakissis for NPR

Cafe Domenico in Fodele, Greece, which claims to be El Greco's hometown, though documents suggest he was born in another town nearby.

Joanna Kakissis for NPR

"Partly the interest is founded in Greek nationalism," he says. "Because this fellow came from here, because he is Greek, there is an additional kind of pride which has nothing to do with recognition of his art."

El Greco Leaves Home

Theotokopoulos left Crete sometime around 1567, departing for Italy, where he spent the next decade experimenting with his artistic style. He then moved to Spain, where he made his home.

"During his lifetime he was called either Domeniko Greco — Greco is Italian, Domeniko Spanish — in official documents in contracts, or, occasionally, Domeniko Theotokopouli, Griego," Hatzinikolaou says. "Then everyone got to know him as El Greco."

Greeks recognize the artist is famous for the work he did in Spain, not Greece. But Hatzinikolaou says they revel in the fact that he never lost his roots.

He always signed his paintings Domenikos Theotokopoulous, "down to the very end, with Greek characters."

Though his works were signed in Greek, El Greco painted them in the Spanish Renaissance style he helped invent.

El Greco's adopted Spanish hometown, Toledo, has held several exhibitions of his work this year. His works have been transported from museums all over the world, coming together in Toledo en masse for the first time since the artist's death.

A video about this year's 400th anniversary greets arrivals at the town's train station. But in the city center, many draw a blank at the name Domenikos Theotokopoulos.

"No idea! Who is that?" says Spanish tourist Angela Fernandez, visiting Toledo from nearby Madrid.

But American tourist Ann Thompson perks up when asked if she knows who Domenikos Theotokopoulos is.

"I do! It's El Greco!" she says. "And I know because my family is from Crete."

Squabbles with Spain's King

El Greco came to Spain to become rich and famous, says his biographer Fernando Maras, author of El Greco: Life and Work and El Greco of Toledo.

"He was very ambitious," says Maras, who also curated one of this year's exhibitions in Toledo. "He tried to raise his status. He thought Spain was a country or a land where his skills would be appreciated, and that he was going to make a much better living."

El Greco's first commission in Spain was an altarpiece for King Philip II, "The Disrobing of Christ," which the king wanted to hang in a monastery north of Madrid, in El Escorial. But El Greco was a perfectionist. He complained about the paint colors he was given, and his fee. Was the king impressed?

"No!" says Maras. "He didn't like it. The relation with El Greco was hard, to say it in a word. The king was angry. Because we know that he had to write a letter, 'Well, there is this Greek who is complaining!' So let's just say it was not the best way to address the king."

King Philip II held a grudge. He never hung El Greco's "The Disrobing of Christ" in his El Escorial monastery. Instead, it now hangs in Toledo's Cathedral.

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View of medieval bridge in Toledo, Spain, where El Greco once lived and painted. Lauren Frayer for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Lauren Frayer for NPR

View of medieval bridge in Toledo, Spain, where El Greco once lived and painted.

Lauren Frayer for NPR

El Greco Arrives in Toledo — and Falls in Love

Out of favor with Spain's royals in Madrid, El Greco moved 40 miles south to Toledo. It had the country's biggest cathedral, and a demand for religious art. It's here that El Greco developed his signature style: eerie, elongated figures of saints, in lurid colors, against stormy Toledo skies.

It was in Toledo that El Greco also found love — perhaps for a second time. He had a relationship with a woman identified in some court documents as Jeronima de las Cuevas, but he never married her. Urban legend in Toledo says Jeronima was a prostitute, or a nun — and thus El Greco couldn't marry her. But Maras, his biographer, says it's more likely because he was already married in Greece.

"He was trying not to rouse suspicion. That's probably the reason he didn't marry the mother of his son," Maras says. "He probably was married in Crete. If he had married for a second time in Spain, he could have been labeled a bigamist and persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition."

El Greco had a son with Jeronima. At age 8, the boy, named Jorge Manuel Theotokopoulos, went to work in his father's workshop. He had some of El Greco's talent for painting, but was a better architect. He helped design some municipal buildings in Toledo, and the cathedral's cupola — which still stand today.

Always an Outsider

The Catholic Church didn't know what to make of El Greco. He was a foreigner, and not a Catholic. He'd fallen out with the king. But nobles bought his work.

El Greco got rich, and then overspent, says Inma Sanchez, an art historian and tour guide in Toledo.

"He was trying to live as a nobleman, at a moment that being a nobleman meant to dress with very expensive clothes, to rent some rooms in a palace," Sanchez says. "So he was living a life that was over his possibilities."

El Greco died in Toledo loaded with debts. He was always an outsider. He never learned Spanish. Sanchez gazes at his grave inside a medieval convent in Toledo, still run by nuns.

"Can you see that little coffin in there?" she says. "Well, this is all we have. And of course the dust inside. That's all."

Almost Forgotten

El Greco was almost forgotten until a little more than 100 years ago, when painters like Cezanne, Picasso and Jackson Pollack rediscovered him. They spotted something very modern in his work, some 300 years before Abstract Expressionism. Now El Greco has become one of the West's most popular painters.

If the artist only knew, Sanchez says.

"I always wonder, I ask myself, can you imagine if I could whisper in the ear of El Greco — '400 years later, we're going to do a monographic exhibition just to remember you, in this place, with paintings from all around the world,'" Sanchez says. "He succeeded! He got what he was really looking for — the fame, and to be remembered."

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame artist Carlos Santana has won 10 Grammys and sold more than 100 million records. He has become one of the world's most celebrated musicians, a destiny that was difficult to imagine during his childhood in a small Mexican town. His father, also a musician, was Santana's first teacher, but he really learned his craft playing on the street and in strip clubs in Tijuana.

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Carlos Santana's mother Josefina B. Santana Santana archives hide caption

itoggle caption Santana archives

Carlos Santana's mother Josefina B. Santana

Santana archives

Carlos Santana shares his journey from Autln, Mexico, to international stardom in his new memoir, The Universal Tone: Bringing My Story to Light. The book is dedicated to his mother, Josefina. "I think she probably prayed for me more than anyone to keep me from getting lost," he says. "I dedicated it to her because she deserves to know that her prayers worked. I am a good man."

Despite their fraught relationship, Santana thanks his mother for instilling a "will for excellence" early on in life. "My mom would say 'OK, we're poor, but we're not dirty and filthy, clean the house,'" Santana tells Michel Martin. "She would say, 'What are you doing?' And if you say 'nothing,' 'I know! Make yourself useful. Don't just sit there like a lump. Do something.'"

Interview Highlights

"I Just Want To Be Adored"

I was drawn to music just by watching everybody, children, older people, and especially women looking at my dad. Every time he played, women were like, 'Oh Don Jose,' you know? And I'm like 'Ooh, Don Jose?! I want some of that.' I didn't know what to call it, but I know that now we call it 'being adored.' I love that dimension of music more than anything, you know? To adore supreme integrity and elegance, I want that. Even though I grew up in Tijuana, in the poorest part, but I want integrity and elegance and I want to carry myself like I got more money than anyone in the world...I just want to be adored like my dad.

Surviving Sexual Abuse

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Carlos Santana at one of his first gigs with his father, a 50th anniversary party in Tijuana in 1958. Santana archives hide caption

itoggle caption Santana archives

Carlos Santana at one of his first gigs with his father, a 50th anniversary party in Tijuana in 1958.

Santana archives

For a long time it made me feel like everybody woke up to screw me, to mess with me, just to put me down, or to take advantage of me. You grow up with a lot of guilt. You grow up with a lot of shame, and a lot of anger. However, the main thing that I learned from this is that I am not what happened to me. I am still with purity and innocence. No one can take that away from me.

Frustrations In The United States

For me, when I used to get angry is when I was in Mission High School and they give me like, some kind of test. And that test was assigned and designed to make me fail, because I'm Mexican. I don't know the things that really don't matter to me. So I said, 'I'm not doing this. If I give you a test of what I know, you're gonna fail it.' I went to the principal a lot of times, but I come from a generation like, question authority. You know, because, this is what's wrong with the world: white people think that they're better than blacks; men think they're better than women; Christians think they're better than somebody else; straight thinks they're better than gay. See, this is the problem with the world.

Living Beyond Labels

I'm not Latino, or Spanish; what I am is a child of light. I want this book for people to understand that you don't have to be the Dalai Lama, or the Pope, or Mother Teresa, or Jesus Christ to create blessings and miracles. Keep repeating, 'I am that I am; I am the light.'

A new United Nations report is warning that fossil fuels must be entirely phased out by the end of the century in order to avoid dangerous and irreversible damage to the Earth's climate.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the world faces "severe, pervasive and irreversible" consequences if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut to zero by 2100.

Examples of "irreversible" change include a runaway melt of the Greenland ice cap that would trigger devastating sea-level rise and could swamp coastal cities and disrupt agriculturally critical monsoons.

"Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts," the report says, adding that some effects of climate change that have occurred already will "continue for centuries."

"Science has spoken," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, presenting the IPCC's Synthesis Report.

"There is no ambiguity in the message," he said. "Leaders must act, time is not on our side."

Acting quickly, he said, the problem could be tackled at a reasonable cost. The U.N.'s goal is to limit average temperature rise to 3.6 degrees F above pre-industrial times. Temperatures are already up by 1.4F.

The Washington Post says:

"The report is the distillation of a five-year effort to assess the latest evidence on climate change and its consequences, from direct atmospheric measurements of carbon dioxide to thousands of peer-reviewed scientific studies. The final document to emerge from the latest of five assessments since 1990, it is intended to provide a scientific grounding for world leaders who will attempt to negotiate an international climate treaty in Paris late next year.

"While the IPCC is barred from endorsing policy, the report lays out possible scenarios and warns that the choices will grow increasingly dire if carbon emissions continue on their current record-breaking trajectory."

Despite continued skepticism over climate change among the general public, politicians and business, an overwhelming number of scientists who study the subject believe that human activity is contributing to a rise in average global temperatures.

United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

climate change