Shan Barclay

Shan Barclay’s reply to an invitation to attend the Civic Service at St Peter’s Mancroft on Holocaust Memorial Day – Wednesday 27 January 2021

“As you will know I am a profound believer in interfaith and better understanding between the religions.
My time on SACRE (Norfolk’s Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education in its schools) taught me a lot with respect to this and I will always remember that Jack Griffiths from the Jewish Synagogue would come up to me at the beginning of a meeting and greet me with Salaamu alaykum and I would greet him with Shalom and then we would sit down next to each other to start the session with others as one team.
I hope that SACRE after a very testing period has come into its own again ensuring that all pupils are allowed their entitlement and right to have access to RE in school.
I was guided to my faith first on the Mount of Olives above Jerusalem and studied there for 3 months back in 1976. I have been back several times, got married there, and my mother also lived there in occupied Palestine for 18 years, working for 10 years in a local college as head of the English Dept, a privilege I also enjoyed for 4 months. There I married a fellow student from a New York Jewish background, her family having emigrated there to flee the pogroms in Russia.
Jerusalem Yerushalayim, Al Qudds (the Holy) is sacred for all religions, not only the Three, and is the heart of the world. I have prayed in the great mosque there, even under the rock itself from which we believe that Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) ascended through all the heavens to the Throne of God and was there given the order for the five prayers.
I have also been to Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity, to Hebron where I was able to touch the tomb of Abraham with my hand, to Jericho, and also the Tomb of Moses on the way to the Dead Sea, and visited the Tomb of Mary (may God be pleased with her). Truly it is a wonderful land and desperately needs to be at peace if the whole world is to be at peace also.
Regarding Holocaust Memorial Day, I once attended the service at St Peter Mancroft many years ago on the invitation of a local Jewish friend. I was also twice invited to contribute to the service at County Hall. I was also very kindly asked by Shelagh Phillips to speak to a meeting of the Council for Christians and Jews where I first met Rabbi Alex Bennet who was most courteous to me. I also had the privilege to work with George Wilson (then retired from the police and a member of the Synagogue) on the Art of Faith project several years ago. Surely much healing and better understanding is needed.
In addition I had the great privilege to listen to Eva Schloss a survivor from Auschwitz which was very moving. This comes to the question as to how all the horrors should best be remembered. The extermination of the Jews was not the Fuhrer’s only intention, anyone whom he disliked for whatever reason or stood in the way of his ‘master plan’ or who was merely accused of being a Jew was dragged into that unholy net. This included also anyone for example who was deemed to be ‘defective’ ie, disabled or different in any way. or non-Aryan. I am heartened therefore that HMDay now attempts to embrace all this too.
By the way Christians and Muslims too historically, have had to endure persecution for their faith. The Muslims, notably in the time of the Prophet, pbuh, in Mecca were made to suffer terribly; and previously of course the Children of Israel suffered appallingly under the rule of the tyrannical false Pharoah at the time.
As a rule, one thing we should learn from all this is ‘Never Again’.
When it comes to ‘genocide’ I think also of what was perpetrated upon the native people of North America, the suffering of the Aborigines, the African slaves in the slave trade and many others under colonial rule and yes in our time now, the Palestinians above all.
That this should continue now is not only tragic but surely unforgivable, especially on behalf of those who have suffered so much themselves.
I do not want there to be hatred or cruelty it is contrary to my religion and actually also to the Jewish religion too, for which I have every respect. Many Jews I know completely agree with me about this.
I went to school near Golder’s Green in London and there were children of Jewish families who attended who were also my friends and classmates and yes there was anti-Semitism which I hated, there was a lot of racism also, for after all these are very much fundamentally the same, none of which would be allowed now.
All the religions fundamentally have so much in common that there really is no excuse for this, let alone going to war about it. Coronavirus is a great test for the whole of humanity and my prayer is that it may make us come to our senses and see the need to heal our society worldwide, to turn our swords into ploughshares and see that there is always more that unites than divides. This is surely not the time for war, hatred, anger and destruction. Humanity must surely have a better destiny than that.
We have within our capacity love and compassion, and our intelligence if rightly directed can help us too.
We must all work together without difference or separation until Justice and Peace are re-established on earth which the Prophet, pbuh, said was made to be a place of worship for all.
Once again then I am really grateful for this invitation and thank the local Jewish community for hosting it.
Even as a ‘gentile’, I hope that I may be allowed to attend also.
In the spirit of peace, harmony and wellbeing
yours sincerely
Shan Barclay”