Key becomes New Zealand´s third
Jewish Prime Minister
By Sharon Berger
Australian Jewish News, International section, November
14, 2008
[underlines below added by Radio Islam for sake of emphasis]
ON Saturday, when National Leader John Key defeated Labour's Helen
Clark and became the new prime minister of New Zealand, the small
Jewish community of approximately 7000 people were watching
closely.
Also observing was Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who called
Key to congratulate him on his election win. The two leaders
spoke for about 20 minutes and "we understand it was a good
call"?, said spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in Canberra, Dor
Shapira.
Key, whose mother - Ruth Lazar - was Jewish, fled Austria on
the eve of World War II, and the prime minister-elect made a point of
acknowledging her during one of the televised election debates. He
has also been involved in a number of events with the Jewish
community, and said recently that he would like to visit Israel where
he has family.
In particular, he wants to pay tribute to his mothers family who did
not survive the Holocaust at Jerusalem' s Yad Vashem. "I am very
respectful of the Jewish faith and, in general, I'm very
respectful of religion, but I'm just not actively religious myself,"?
Key said last week.
Key is actually the third prime minister with Jewish ancestry in
New Zealand. Julius Vogel served in the 1870s and Sir Francis
Henry Dillon Bell, who later converted to Christianity, was at the
helm for two weeks in 1925.
Shapira said the embassy welcomed the new Government and looked
forward to working with it and continuing the good relations between
Israel and New Zealand."?
Diplomatic relations between the two countries have been tumultuous
during Clark's reign, who has been in power since 1999. The
relationship reached a low point when two apparent Mossad agents were
caught attempting to illegally obtain a Kiwi passport.
In 2006, an arrest warrant for "war crimes"? was issued for former
Israel Defence Forces chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon, who was
travelling in the country. It was later rescinded.
Newly appointed Labour Leader Phil Goff also made few friends in the
pro-Israel community when he incensed then-prime minister Ariel
Sharon in 2003, when as New Zealand's foreign minister, he greeted
Yasser Arafat in Ramallah.
The strain has not been limited to political relations. The Jewish
community has faced a number of anti-Semitic attacks, including
desecration of graves and a prayer house being burnt to the ground at
a Jewish cemetery, over recent years.
The Jewish community is cautiously optimistic that under the
National Party and Key's direction, relations between Israel and New
Zealand will improve yet they are concerned that he may want to
prove he is impartial.
"Obviously there were difficulties with the Labour government in
matters relating to Israel. We can only hope that those difficulties
will now be a matter of the past,"? said Robert Goot, president of
the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
Besides the three Jewish prime ministers, Auckland has had seven
Jewish mayors throughout its history.
The former rabbi of Auckland Hebrew Congregation for seven years,
Jeremy Lawrence, said, "Jewish settlement of Auckland is as old as
settlement of the city.
It has been a country where the settling community was always warm
and welcoming, enabling the Jewish community to establish
prominence."? Rabbi Lawrence, now rabbi at The Great Synagogue in
Sydney, added, "The Auckland Jewish community all felt proud to
identify and participate in the local community politics and
discussion. It became a tradition of Jewish families to
participate in civic affairs, which continues until today."
