Be’er Sheva commemoration

AJN STAFF

JEANNE Pratt joined around 400 people from the Australian and Israeli military, diplomatic and Jewish communities at a ceremony on October 31 that commemorated the Australian Light Horse charge at Be’er Sheva.

The ceremony took place at the Park of the Australian Soldier in Be’er Sheva in front of a monument to the Australian Light Horse regiment and also honoured the memory of businessman and philanthropist Richard Pratt, who died in April this year.

Pratt was remembered for his generosity in Israel, which totalled more than $30 million.

On October 31, 1917, the Australian Light Horse regiment charged the wells of Be’er Sheva, repelling Turkish forces and opening the route to the British arrival in Jerusalem and its victory in the World War I Middle Eastern campaign.

The park, which is dedicated in the memory of the Australian Light Horse Regiment, was developed in 2006 as a permanent memorial by the Pratt Foundation.

It was the foundation’s largest undertaking in Israel up to that time and acknowledges Australian involvement in the Middle East during that war, in a campaign that claimed the lives of 1400 Australian troops.

The park and its memorial monument to the Light Horse charge was opened in April 2008.

Alongside Jeanne Pratt at the commemoration was one of Australia best-known ex-servicemen, Major-General Digger James, a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars, who was seriously wounded in Korea and lost a leg. He was later awarded the Military Cross for bravery.

In the past 10 years, the Pratt Foundation has donated about $30 million to around 350 Israeli projects, focusing on disabled children, yeshiva students, Jewish and Arab school children, the Batsheva Dance Company, the Jewish National Fund, Ben Gurion University and adults with special needs.