Apache rewrite question

[Monty wig]

Gurus,

First of all I apologizes if this is not the right list to ask Apache's
rewrite question and will appreciate if some can redirect me to the the
right list...

Now the issue - We are using rewrite rule to convert
/montreal/how-do-open-a-new-account? into
/finance/montreal/how-do-open-a-new-account? but Apache is removing "?"
form the URL before it send the request to the backend Jboss server using
reverse proxy.

Is there any way to keep "?" in the URL?

Thanks - Monty