The Scottish Jewish Heritage Centre recently held a multi-faith speaker event for our school and tour guide volunteers. Organised with the help of Interfaith Scotland, this was a wonderful opportunity for attendees to hear from two speakers of different faiths, with the opportunity for questions and discussion with the volunteers afterwards.
Reflecting on why it is so important to hold events like this, manager of the Heritage Centre Kerry Patterson said, “As we welcome visitors of many different backgrounds to the Heritage Centre, it is really helpful for us all to know more different faiths, especially the areas where Judaism, Christianity and Islam have similarities.” Sydney Switzer, Education and Development Officer for Interfaith Scotland, also spoke about the relevance of organising events like this:
“Education and dialogue are great ways for us to build understanding between different groups. I think it’s wonderful how many non-Jewish school groups choose to learn about the Jewish community through the SJHC, and equally inspiring how the guides and staff at the SJHC are keen to deepen their understanding of other faith traditions. Relationship building is so important in these times of polarisation and prejudice, and at Interfaith Scotland we’re happy to help support this education and dialogue however we can.”
Our first speaker was Reverend Gareth Jones, a former Minister with the Methodist Church. Gareth is Chair of Edinburgh Interfaith Association, on the board of Interfaith Scotland and is the Interfaith Officer for the Methodist Church, amongst many other roles.
Gareth discussed the ‘faith families’ and gave an overview of churches and denominations. He included discussion of some updated terminology, such as referring to the ‘Hebrew Scriptures’ and ‘Hebrew Bible’ instead of the Old Testament. He described the contemporary approach of Christianity to Judaism as ‘sibling faiths’ and mentioned the formation of the CCJ (Council of Christians and Jews) in 1942 as a key point in the timeline of bringing the faiths together in common understanding.
Gareth’s presentation was followed by Zara Mohammed, from the Muslim Council of Scotland. Zara is the former Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, the first woman and youngest person to hold that post.
Zara described Islam as the face of a diversity of colours and cultures, and a lived path, not just a belief. Her discussion included the mention of the importance of charitable giving as a part of the religion and fasting as an act of worship. Zara included a mention of the history of Muslim communities in Scotland. There are currently around 100,000 Muslims in Scotland, with around half of those living in the Glasgow area.
A Q&A session chaired by Sydney Switzer, Education and Development Officer of Interfaith Scotland followed the individual presentations. During the lunch, provided by Mark’s Deli, there was the opportunity to chat further with the speakers.
Interfaith Scotland were really helpful in organising the speakers for us, and we have had great feedback from our volunteers about how interesting and helpful they found the speakers. We are very grateful to Zara, her colleague Ammara, Gareth and Sydney for giving up their time to help us with our training event. We hope to hold many more events like this in the future!
