‘Mi Shebeirach’ For the King

By COLlive reporter

King Philippe I became Belgium’s seventh monarch on Sunday’s national day after his father Albert abdicated as the head of this fractured nation.

The ceremony capped a day of transition which started when 79-year-old Albert, signed his rights as the kingdom’s largely ceremonial ruler at the royal palace in the presence of Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, who holds the political power in this 183-year-old parliamentary democracy.

Less than two hours later, the nation got a new king when Philippe, 53, pledged to abide by Belgium’s laws and constitution. Crowds of well-wishers cheered the royal family’s every move.

The Orthodoxe Israelitische Gemeente Machsike Hadass, the haredi community body, has issued a call to local shuls to recite a special prayer for the king and his wife after the reading of the Torah.

“On the occasion of the coronation of His Majesty King Philip, the gabboim of all shuls and batei medrash in the city to publicaly say the accepted prayer of “Hanosen teshuva” this Shabbos,” the poster asked.

With this, the Antwerp haredi community followed a long-held custom of reciting the prayer at the Israelitische Gemeente van Antwerpen Shomre Hadass, the local Modern Orthodox Jewish community led by Chief Rabbi David Moshe Lieberman.

While Philippe was still crown prince in 1993, the new king had unveiled a plaque in which Belgian Jews expressed gratitude to non-Jewish Belgians for the rescue of many Jews during the Holocaust.

More recently, in 2012, King Philippe attended the 56th pilgrimage to the Dossin barracks, a former assembly camp from where thousands of Jews and Roma were transported to concentration camps, as part of the National Day of Jewish Martyr of Belgium and the 70th anniversary of the start of the deportation of Belgian Jews.