Israeli President Isaac Herzog will represent the Jewish state at Saturday’s coronation in London of British monarch King Charles III.
Herzog will depart Israel on Thursday, and the following day attend a reception at Buckingham Palace for visiting heads of state.
The Israeli president said that he would walk to the coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey on Shabbat, in order not to publicly desecrate the Jewish day of rest.
This will be Herzog’s third meeting with Charles since becoming president. The two men met in November 2021 when Charles was still crown prince, and again last September at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth.
On May 6, oil that comes from the Jewish state will be used to crown Charles and Queen Camilla.
“The oil that will be used to anoint him as king was consecrated in Jerusalem’s Old City, two minutes away from my office, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,” Rabbi Nechemia Coopersmith, editor-in-chief of Aish.com, wrote in a recent column.
The oil is made from olives of Mount of Olives fame, according to Coopersmith, who said that Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury, has noted the “deep historic link” between the oil that will crown King Charles and that of biblical kings.
Writes Coopersmith: “In Judaism, anointing with oil signifies the endowment of Divine power, authority and blessings upon the new king.”