Royal Wedding Watch 2011 - Jewish Edition

The ketubah created for Prince William and Kate Middleton is displayed.

The world is atwitter over the upcoming royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton (who, j. reported back in November, is not Jewish). The wedding is scheduled for April 29 - three days after the end of Passover, which is good news for Jews who, like me, enjoy preparing theme meals for major events such as this. It wouldn't be a royal wedding without a pint of beer, scones and, of course, a proper cake!

Earlier this month, reports surfaced that the heir to the British throne would be breaking a glass at the end of the ceremony, a traditional Jewish custom. The Jewish Chronicle had written an article stating that the royal couple would be incorporating Jewish, Muslim and Hindu customs into their traditional Anglican wedding at Westminster Abbey to celebrate the multicultural nature of Britain.

While this seems like a rather lovely touch, it turned out to be a Purim joke. (I guess the tipoff was the Buckingham Palace spokeswoman "Esther Calthorpe-Watts"...subtle.) Too bad!

In real news, however, British-born Israeli artist Michael Horton created a ketubah for the couple that includes both Hebrew and English text. The Jewish Chronicle reports that Horton "de-koshered" the text so it could be suitable for a couple married in a church, and removed the parts about the obligations of the husband to the wife so that the ketubah could be a purely commemorative document. The JC has lots of nice details about the look of the ketubah, which sounds lovely.

The artist then presented it to Matthew Gould, Britain's ambassador to Israel, who assured him it would have an expedient passage to the royal couple.

Also, the father of the groom, Prince Charles, this month signed on to become a patron of World Jewish Relief's poverty relief program for families in Ukraine.

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