Finding this on Facebook this morning made me love the old broad even more!
4 Facts about Queen Elizabeth II and the Jews
1. Her Mother-in-Law Saved Jews During the Holocaust
When World War II broke out, Prince Philip volunteered for the British navy, and battled Nazis with distinction. Remaining in Athens, Princess Alice invited the Cohens, a Greek Jewish family with whom she and her husband had been friends, to hide in her house.
Princess Alice was brought in for questioning but refused to divulge the fact that she was sheltering Jews in her home. She returned to London in 1967 and died there in 1969. She requested that her remains be interred in Jerusalem, and in 1988 they were buried on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. She was declared Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial. Prince Philip traveled to Jerusalem for the ceremony, where he planted a tree in his mother’s memory.
2. Queen Elizabeth II Hired Jewish Mohel to Circumcise Prince Charles
Queen Elizabeth II hired an Orthodox Jewish mohel to circumcise her son Prince Charles. Rabbi Jacob Snowman (1871-1959) was a London mohel of great renown.
3. British Jews pray for the Queen every Shabbat
It’s a Jewish custom around the world to recite a prayer on Shabbat for their government leaders. In Britain, this means praying for the welfare of Queen Elizabeth II and her family. British Jews ask God to “preserve the Queen in life, guard her and deliver her from all sorrow.” The prayer goes on to ask that the Divine “put a spirit of wisdom into her heart and into the hearts of all her counsellors” too.
4. She Departed from Royal Protocol to Listen to Holocaust Survivors
On January 27, 2005, the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Queen Elizabeth hosted a group of Holocaust survivors in St. James’s Palace in the center of London.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was present and later recounted: “When the time came for her to leave, she stayed. And stayed. One of her attendants said that he had never known her to linger so long after her scheduled departure. She gave each survivor - it was a large group - her focused, unhurried attention. She stood with each until they had finished telling their personal story."
