David McKee reflects on a study visit to the Holy Land.

DESPITE conlict in the region and worries over security, plenty of people still travel to Israel, with around 3.5 million annually visiting the Holy City of Jerusalem alone.

So why should my relections on my recent trip be any diferent? Especially when Church groups and readers of Life and Work will regularly organise pilgrimages to visit sites such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; the Via Dolarosa and Bethlehem? I too had visited Israel before on a cruise in 2013 with my wife, but I had never had the chance to stay for this extended period of time. Not for this type of intense study. And not as it would turn out, with this impact on me in terms of my possible route into ministry, which I have been considering as part of the discernment process. Yet again, the intoxicating Holy Land was about to grab me and not let go.

This was all due to my 10-day Teacher Study Visit to Yad Vashem, organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust. Our visit included several days of lectures from experts in areas such as the teaching of the Holocaust in schools; Judaism; Antisemitism; the Israeli Palestinian conlict, and also an in depth tour of the various memorials at the emotional Yad Vashem site. We were also given a taste of wider Israel, with excursions to the Old City of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, as well as Masada and the Dead Sea.

Our base however was mainly the magniicent Yad Vashem complex on Mount Herzl. This is Israel’s National Memorial to the victims of the Holocaust and “Yad Vashem” is taken from verse 56 in the Book of Isaiah and literally means “a place and a name”. This refers to the fact that while during the Holocaust, victims’ names were considered irrelevant by the Nazis and their collaborators, at Yad Vashem, victims will always be remembered. This was seen in the haunting Hall of Names at the end of the Museum Exhibition. There, pictures of some of the victims rise high into the ceiling in a cone shape, surrounded by over 2.7 million pages of personal testimony.

As the Yad Vashem website states:

“No cemeteries, no headstones, no traces were left to mark the loss of the six million Holocaust victims. The Hall of Names at Yad Vashem is the Jewish People’s memorial to each Jew murdered in the Holocaust – a place where they are commemorated for generations to come”

Later in the week, our group heard from Holocaust survivor, Professor Daniel Gold. It was clear that during the Holocaust, he had no identity. Somehow however, he rebuilt his life in Israel, joining the military as a pilot and as such, inally, gaining the identity he was once denied. He has continued to give back to his country through his lecturing career and also as a policeman. The Holocaust in some amazing way, has not deined him, even though he still lives with the scars of that awful time. But he is a person who is inally recognised and respected. As Christians, we follow this example in the conduct and love of Jesus.

These talks, this experience however, constantly gave more questions than answers. How could the world let something like the Holocaust happen? How can we ensure it never happens again? What can we do in our life to make the world a better and safer place?

Especially when this is contrasted with the Holy Sites which seem to surround you everywhere you walk in Israel, be they Christian, Jewish or Islamic. Those who have been, can explain that nothing prepares you for the beauty and spirituality of the place. I didn’t feel like a teacher as I walked around, but rather in a way diicult to explain, someone guided by God and close to God in a way I have never felt before. In the Armenian Quarter. In the Jewish Quarter. In the Muslim Quarter. In the Christian Quarter leading to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Walking where Jesus walked. Sufering only in my mind, where Jesus horriically sufered in body and mind. Or at the St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Kirk, where the outreach of the Church of Scotland can be seen irst-hand. It seems that religion and faith enter every sinew of Israel’s DNA. Yet my visit importantly focused on the single worst act mankind has every carried out. So what can be done to quell this hatred, even in a place so religious?

Firstly, it is clear that people want peace. In Hebrew, shalom is a greeting which can mean hello and goodbye. Yet its literal meaning is peace. Everyone we met believed in this, including a university Professor who has tried to write a “dual narrative” history of events in Israel and Palestine. The aim was for the histories to be read side by side: for each side of the conlict to understand the other. Yet, the authorities refuse to allow the book in schools. However, people are not deterred: they still strive for peace.

Secondly, interfaith work that goes on in all of our communities, should continue to be promoted. At Yad Vashem, we studied the Righteous among the Nations – Gentile groups who helped Jews during the Holocaust. This included a Muslim Albanian family who saved a Jewish family. And Scotland’s own Jane Haining, who refused repeated requests to return home and insisted on staying in her job in the Mission School in Budapest, working with her girls, many of whom were Jewish. This was despite the advance of Hitler and the Nazis into Hungary. She was eventually arrested and sent to Auschwitz. She was recognised as Righteous by Yad Vashem in 1997. Her love and desire for inclusiveness and peace remained to the end and it is something that should live on in us.

Former Moderator the Very Rev Dr Lorna Hood, has led superbly in Scotland the work of Remembering Srebrenica. Their aim is to “recognise that we have achieved a lot in terms of building a cohesive society here in the UK, but discrimination, promotion of hatred, extremism, and exclusion persist, and we must play our part, no matter how large or small, to create a better and safer society for all”.

This message I believe, is also a fundamental Christian message, as we follow the love shown by Jesus.

I relect on the words from Matthew 25 v 35-36:

“I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me a drink; I was a stranger and you received me in your homes, naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me, in prison and you visited me.” (Good News Translation)

This is not an easy challenge, but I believe with dialogue, open hearts and open minds and a greater understanding of each other’s beliefs, then the world can be better. We can ensure that the love of God transcends everything. I look forward to returning to the Holy Land in the future thanks to God’s guidance, which became irmly alive during this trip. My discernment is that God is calling me to serve, to speak out and to make sure we all live together as one: in peace.”

David McKee at Yad Vashem in Israel