Faiths Act

The most profound interfaith experience I’ve had so far was in Hebron, in the West Bank. I have to say from the outset, Hebron is the saddest place I’ve ever visited. Don’t get me wrong, the largest city in the West Bank could be a very nice place indeed, nestled in the Judean mountains, with winding streets, old bazaars and oak trees that have lasted millennia. But the town is also a volatile nucleus of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As a Jew, the image that sticks in my head is that of the Magen David, the Star of David, misappropriated and daubed by Jewish settlers on shop fronts, doors and, after our visit, on gravestones and a mosque. A symbol of my own faith desecrated, in order to desecrate a Muslim place of worship; I defy anyone to not be disturbed in the face of such mindless enmity. One could, indeed people do, write books about Hebron and the conflict, so I won’t try and cover its full tragedy here. 

I was there as part of a Scottish interfaith pilgrimage to the holy land, comprising 30 people from seven different faiths. We ended our trip to Hebron with a visit to the Cave of the Patriarchs, a profoundly holy place for Christians, Jews and Muslims, and the burial place of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah. It is also the site of Baruch Goldstein’s 1994 bloodthirsty massacre of 29 Muslims at prayer, an attack condemned by Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin as “loathsome”. Since the attack, there are now separate entrances for Muslims and Jews, and so our interfaith group divided in two. Once inside, we recited interfaith prayers for peace together, separated by a slab of bulletproof glass; the most moving interfaith experience I’ve had, in the saddest place I’ve ever visited. 

Three years later, and I’m delighted to have been chosen as a Faiths Act Fellow. The reason I started with that rather intense anecdote is because it demonstrates two things; first, the importance of interfaith action in the most difficult circumstances, whether in the war-torn Middle East or, in the case of my placement from July, for poverty-stricken families in Bangladesh. Second, the need for intrafaith work on an equal scale; perhaps an even more difficult challenge. 

There was not much disagreement among the interfaith pilgrims in Hebron; I think we all came away with a similar impression.  However, intrafaith voices were raised between me and the Jewish settlement leader, in a heated Q&A. Evidently, we were both of very different political persuasions, but without the space that inter-faith provides for respecting difference, as we were both of the same faith, one of us had to be plain wrong. Perhaps, when it comes to matters of faith, it is easier to respect different beliefs, than to accept people challenging the interpretation of your own.

This is a phenomenon not restricted to faith alone. Take politics; among the factious ‘left’, it’s often noted that there’s nothing a socialist hates more than a different kind of socialist. Monty Python’s “People’s Front of Judea” depicts this wonderfully, and it translates quite well to three religious examples I can think of. 

First: I recall being told by ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel that, if you need to pray and are too far from your synagogue, it is wholly acceptable to pray in a mosque or church, but under no circumstances should one ever set foot in a reform synagogue. I applaud their openness to our Abrahamic cousins, but there’s some serious need for intrafaith dialogue among our Jewish brethren.

Second: the Sunni-Shi’a schism that is widening throughout much of the Muslim world. Though the majority of Sunni and Shi’a Muslims do not allow their relations to erupt into violent hostility, the terms Rafidi (“Rejecter”, used by Sunni’s to disparage Shi’as) and Wahabi (a separate branch of Sunnis, but used by Shi’as as a derogatory term for all Sunnis) are becoming more widely used. This particular sectarianism is most brutally demonstrated in the bombings of places of worship.

Third: Scotland, where I’ve spent the past five years, remains blighted by the “parasite of sectarianism”, according to First Minister Alex Salmond. The old story goes that an armed robber approached a man: “Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?”, “Neither, I’m a Jew...”, “Ah, but are you a Catholic Jew or Protestant Jew?”  Now, this never happened to me in Scotland, and I’m pretty sure it’s just a joke, but like Monty Python, it’s quite representative. I’ve always found Glasgow to be a remarkably cohesive city in terms of the different religious communities, apart from the sectarianism, of course.  Scottish friends have remarked to me that this is because the Christian communities are too busy fighting each other.

In conclusion, this year as a Faiths Act Fellow will not be a walk in the park; indeed, I’m looking forward to the challenges it presents for engaging with communities other than my own, in multi-faith action to combat global poverty.  But perhaps the hardest parts will occur when confronting the extremities of our own communities; the daubing of my Magen David as racist graffiti, the perversion of Islam by terrorists, or the absurd claims of “Christianity” by godhatesfags.com all need challenging, perhaps most of all by the true believers of these faiths, who share a vision of more just and compassionate world.

Anthony Silkoff, Faiths Act Fellow