Editorial, April 29, 2011

Here’s to a simcha that’s fit for a king

ON Monday this week, as Australians celebrated Pesach, Easter and the long weekend, we took a break from crunching on matzah or indulging in chocolate eggs to reflect on the service and sacrifice of our fellow citizens who have given their lives for Australia.

Commemorating the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign of 1915, those first Anzacs who landed on the shores of Turkey were fighting for king and country.

While the royal reference may have lost some of its symbolism over the years, it is perhaps poignant that this same week ends with the world’s attention focused on our future monarch.

For just as Jewish diggers have fought on all Australia’s battlefronts, so too in Australian synagogues we say prayers for the royal family.

Both are unqualified expressions of our loyalty to the land in which we live, our respect for its values and institutions and our unwavering commitment to conduct ourselves as full, active and proud citizens.

True, many of us may count ourselves as republicans, viewing the monarchy as both an anachronism and an irrelevance in a 21st-century democracy.

But nonetheless, while it exists, as dutiful Australians, we pay homage to the Queen as our sovereign and to her grandson as our future king.

Whatever one’s politics, we wish Prince William and Kate Middleton much nachas as they embark on their married lives.

And echoing the sentiment expressed by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry this week, “May they both be blessed with good health and happiness, and be worthy symbols of British ­freedom and justice for the peoples of the Commonwealth.”

Urgent prayer for pilgrims’ progress

ANOTHER week, another tragic death as Israel and the Jewish world mourn the death of Ben-Yosef Livnat, fatally shot after ­worshipping at Joseph’s Tomb.

While it seems the 25-year-old and those visiting the holy site with him had not followed the security protocols established by the Israeli military and the Palestinian police, it also appears the armed response which claimed the life of the father of four was both unprovoked and unjustified.

Whatever the circumstances surrounding the shooting, the fact remains that an innocent man lies dead, the latest victim of the upsurge of violence and terror perpetrated against Israeli civilians over the past six weeks.

That Joseph’s Tomb and other sites deemed sacred by different religions are held hostage to the tensions of the region is, of course, a tragedy in its own right. That genuine and peaceful worshippers of whatever faith need to pass through checkpoints or be escorted by the military is a blemish on the holiness of the Holy Land.

One can only hope and pray that if and when peace is finally established, those like Livnat who wish to make a pilgrimage are able to do so freely, without any encumbrance or fear for their lives.