SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) — More than 1,000 people, including Australia’s prime minister and three former prime ministers, attended the state funeral of former Governor-General Sir Zelman Cowen at a Melbourne synagogue.
Cowen, who died Dec. 8 at the age of 92 after suffering from Parkinson’s disease for at least 15 years, served as Australia’s head of state from 1977 to 1982. He was only the second Jew, after Sir Isaac Isaacs, to be appointed the Queen’s Australian representative.
Speaking at Tuesday’s service at Temple Beth Israel, one of his sons, Rabbi Dr. Shimon Cowen, said his father was proud of his Jewish heritage.
“He identified with the plight of the physical and spiritual entity of the Jewish people, unequivocally and in perfect tandem with his service of Australia and all humanity,” Shimon Cowen said.
Among those in the congregation were Prime Minister Julia Gillard and federal Opposition leader Tony Abbott, as well as former prime ministers Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and John Howard, and current Governor-General Quentin Bryce.
Born in Melbourne in 1919 to refugees who fled czarist Russia, Cowen became a Rhodes scholar at Oxford and went on to a prolific career as a jurist, constitutional lawyer and university vice-chancellor, as well as an ardent supporter of an Australian republic.
He also was a staunch Zionist involved with numerous Israeli organizations including the Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem.
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