Posted on 04/28/2010 3:02:22 PM PDT by SJackson
ANZAC Day marks the 1915 dawn landing in Gallipoli of Australian and New Zealand troops.
Soldiers and former service personnel from Australian and New Zealand forces, diplomats, military attaches, and Australian and New Zealand expatriates living in Israel as well as tourists from those countries, and young antipodeans engaged in volunteer projects in Israel were among the crowd that gathered at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in Jerusalem on Sunday for the annual ANZAC Day ceremony honoring soldiers who sacrificed their lives fighting on foreign shores for peace, justice and democracy.
ANZAC Day marks the 1915 dawn landing in Gallipoli of Australian and New Zealand troops, most of whom paid the supreme sacrifice.
However, over the years Australian and New Zealand soldiers have been and continue to be engaged in battles around the globe, and tribute is therefore paid on ANZAC Day to the contributions and sacrifices of all Aussie and Kiwi servicemen and women, as well as those of other Commonwealth countries and even those of former enemy countries whose armies were conquered by the ANZACs separately and together with the forces of other allied countries.
Australian Ambassador designate Andrea Faulkner – Australia’s first female envoy to Israel in 62 years of diplomatic ties – said that commemorative services were being held in more than seventy countries, with Australians and New Zealanders traveling to former battle sites to attend the ceremonies. A delegation to Gallipoli was led by Australia’s first female Governor General Quentin Bryce and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key.
Tragically, said Faulkner, there was a reminder of particular force of sacrifices made by the ANZACs with the death in a helicopter crash on Sunday of three members of the Royal New Zealand Air Force who were on their way to an ANZAC Day service in Wellington.
“Gathered in Jerusalem, we recall in particular the role of the Australian Light Horsemen in the campaign to push back the Ottoman forces from the then Palestine – a role which made a fundamental contribution to the creation of the circumstances that allowed the establishment of the modern state of Israel,” said Faulkner.
Throughout the year, as people encounter stories of war, conflict and casualties, they stop to pause and mourn and think, Faulkner continued.
“However, on ANZAC Day we make a special effort to commemorate and consider the meaning of what our servicemen and women contribute for the security of nations and peoples, and for the fundamental values of liberty and democracy for which we must remain ever vigilant,” she said.
Faulkner noted that Australians remain very much involved in the region, with troops committed in Afghanistan and across the Middle East, including the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) and the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO).
The large number of medals decorating the chests of Australians and New Zealanders attached to the MFO or UNTSO was ample testimony of their heroism. Ed Hardy, who works for UNTSO, though dressed in civilian attire, sported several medals earned in service in East Timor, Iraq, the Solomon Islands and Afghanistan.
There are six rows of headstones in the cemetery with Stars of David on them, and traditionally, the rabbi participating in the service walks from the catafalque to the far end of the cemetery, where these graves are located, to conduct a Jewish service at the conclusion of the general service.
In the past this has always been a spontaneous move. This year, it was part of the official program and was mentioned twice in the distributed printed program.
Faulkner, along with Embassy staff and MFO and UNTSO personnel, also attended the Jewish service which for the first time had two rabbis officiating. Rabbi Raymond Apple, rabbi emeritus of the Great Synagogue in Sydney and former chief Jewish chaplain to the Australian Defense Forces, saw his former colleague, Chaplain Rabbi Edward Belfer, who came on aliya only a few weeks ago, and decided to share the service with him.
Belfer, who was a cantor before he became a rabbi, chanted kaddish.
The number of participants in the Jewish service was much larger than in previous years, possibly because the service was held at mid-morning rather than at dawn, as it had been held in the past.
One of the best war films ever. Hard to find but it can be had out of Hong Kong in DVD suitable for North America.
I highly recommend it.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Three days post ANZAC Day. The article doesn't live up to the headline, but it's fair to say the defeat of the Turks in WWI was far more significant in the creation of a Jewish state than anything that happened in WWII. Were it not for the recalcitrance of the Brits, not the Aussies or Kiwis, in fulfilling their freely accepted obligation to create a Jewish state in the region, Israel would have been a state long before Hitler invaded Poland. Perhaps able to accept a refugee or two.
Absolutely! Loved the battle scene at the end where the German kept telling the Turks, “They won’t charge”.
Israel was created at Har Sinai. That was 2 millennia before britons wore clothes
Eggs ackley!
It is true that I am a Jew, and when my ancestors were receiving their Ten Commandments from the immediate Deity, amidst the thundering and lightnings of Mt. Sinai, the ancestors of my opponent were herding swine in the forests of Great Britain.
Of course he was defending slavery at the time. Perhaps Disraeli's comment about the same time is more apt.
Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.
I love quotes
If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.
Albert Einstein
yeshar coach
Mel Gibson can't get into the unit because he doesn't know how to get a horse to move.
But there was also another epic film, The Lighthorsemen (1987), that's harder to get a hold of.
I don't remember much about The Lighthorsemen, but the tacky slogan for Gallipoli -- "From a place you've never heard of comes a story you'll never forget" -- turns out to be true (even if you have heard of Gallipoli). A great flick, even if you can't stand Mel Gibson.
Todah raba
BTW, imo the Aussies and Kiwis deserve a lot of credit. Unlike the Brits, they showed up to help us in Nam too.
A memorial in Beersheba, Israel:
Thanks for the movie tip. I don’t mind Mel Gibson; he’s actually a decent actor. He’s gotten a bit overexposed, though, especially with the mess he’s made of his personal life.
How pathetic that you feel you need to put down other ethnic groups to raise up your own.
Most historians put the events on Har Sinai at about 1400BC. Those naked Briton's built this between 1000 and 1500 years before Moses climbed that mountain. 
There is no doubt that the Jews are a great people with a long history. Most of us who aren't Jews know at least that. We also have manners.
I was referring to the ‘Light Horsemen’ of ‘87.
What makes movies so much fun is our individual perceptions. I thought ‘Gallipoli’ was a great movie, but I thiought the latter film was the better of the two, as opposed to you.
Still, both very good efforts.
The Aussies are some of my favorites as I fought with them around War Zone D.
Cripple Creek. You?
I was referring to the ‘Light Horsemen’ of ‘87.
What makes movies so much fun is our individual perceptions. I thought ‘Gallipoli’ was a great movie, but I thiought the latter film was the better of the two, as opposed to you.
Still, both very good efforts.
The Aussies are some of my favorites as I fought with them around War Zone D.
Cripple Creek. You?
It wasn’t in their doctrine to charge...until their command decided on an unorthodox approach.
My impression is that the ‘Light Horse’ were rather like our ‘Dragoons’ of an earlier moment...heavy infantry that depended on the horse to get them to the FEBA, and forward, whereupon they dismounted and fought as Infantry.
In the movie, they were, accurately, displayed without sabres...they wielded their bayonets.
Great fun and a great tribute to a very heroic bunch of boyos.
my apologies , however as the original SJackson noted and further expounded, i was making a play on Disraeli.
or as the late Myron Cohen joked”Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine had diabetes”
BTW, Stonehenge predated the Celtic migration. Hence the naked body painted Celts who later fled to France and Wales had nothing to do with it. Neither did the Angles & Saxons who arrived much later and whose descendants became the Light Horsemen
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