At the end of last year, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem and Yad Vashem: Israel's Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority entered into an historic partnership agreement that essentially sets up for the first time a special Christian Desk at Yad Vashem.
One may well ask, “Why such an initiative and what prompted it?” The answer is simple and disturbing.
Simple because Yad Vashem is visited annually by hundreds of thousands of Christians who love Israel and feel overwhelmingly shocked by the events of the Holocaust. They want to make a difference and by supporting Yad Vashem and its mission to maintain the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, they are empowered to do so.
Disturbing because in many parts of the world, as demonstrated by the recent conference in Teheran, denying the Holocaust is becoming more of a reality. This trend not only dishonours the memory of the six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazi killing machine. But it also by implication vilifies the Jews as liars and lays again the awful and evil seeds of anti-Semitism.
A desk for "Christian Friends of Yad Vashem" will reach out to the Christian world, educate it and enable it to learn the eternal, universal lessons that will ensure that nothing like this will ever happen again.
The nominated Director of the Christian Desk at Yad Vashem is Rev. Sam Clarke. Sam is an ordained Episcopalian minister from the United States of America. He has served in evangelical congregations in Florida and Washington DC and has always had a deep and abiding love for Israel. He and his family actually come from Tennessee where, in the town of Franklin, they have a family home.
Sam has taken up residence in Jerusalem and will not only seek to involve Christians in the lessons to be gleaned from the Holocaust but he will also raise money for Yad Vashem. By under-girding the future of Yad Vashem, we can protect generations to come from the scourge of anti-Semitism and thereby create a safer world.