Prominent Jews Throughout British Commonwealth Honored by Queen

Birthday Celebration: The Queen honored several Jews throughout the United Kingdom on her birthday this year. Image by Getty Images

By JTA June 23, 2013

A Canadian rabbi and several Jewish philanthropists were among the parties honored by the British Royal House this month.

Other Jews on the list of 1,180 royal honorees in honor of the Queen’s birthday are Tate Modern Museum Director Nicholas Serota; actress Claire Bloom; and Judy Ironside, founder of Britain’s Jewish Film Festival, London’s Jewish Chronicle reported. The list was published on June 15.

The Queen also sent a Diamond Jubilee Medal to Rabbi Mendel Zaltzman of the Russian-speaking community in Toronto. The medal, which is given out to notable individuals from the British Commonwealth, was presented this month to the Chabad emissary by Peter Kent, Canada’s minister of the environment.

Sculptor Anish Kapoor of Mumbai, who spent much of his youth living in Israel on a kibbutz, was knighted last week at the Queen’s birthday party.

Earlier this month, Sarah, the Duchess of York, visited Tikva, an institution for abandoned Jewish children founded in 1993 by Rabbi Shlomo Baksht in Ukraine. Staff treat the children “with the care and attention they would if the children were their own flesh and blood,” the Duchess said, adding: “The Jewish faith instills a wonderful sense of community, family values and ethics in its teachings, something I support whole-heartedly.”

Other Jewish recipients of royal distinctions this year included Thomas Heatherwick, designer of the cauldron that held the 2012 Olympic flame; theatre school founder Anna Scher; and philanthropists Leonard Polonsky, Max Steinber, Michael Moritz and Norma Brier.

Also honored was professor of medicine Michael Stratton; Leslie Rose of the Make-a-Wish Foundation for children; school governor George Pincus; jeweler Laurence Graff; and Haim Levy, president of the Gibraltar Jewish community.

Stanley Coorsh was honored with a British Empire Medal for services to the community in Glasgow, an honor also bestowed on Angela Cox, who guides women suffering from breast cancer. Aldenham parish councillor Gillian Balen is to receive a distinction for services to health and the community in West Hertfordshire.

In Sweden, King Carl Gustav XVI last week honored Lena Posner-Korosi, the outspoken president of the country’s Jewish community, with a royal medal “for extraordinary contribution to the Jewish community.”

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