Christian Pilgrimage to Israel

Christianity as a religion is followed by less than two-percent in Israel, Israel and Palestinian Territories but has one of the highest numbers of Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land.

The latest statistics for the previous year reveals that close to 3.5 million travelers visited the Holy Land. Of this, more than sixty-percent were Christians from many parts of the world. Considering that such stupendous numbers travel to this part as part of their faith, the Israeli government is very upbeat about Faith and Religious Travel.

In fact shares borders with not only Jewish States but West Banks as well and has hence sees the potential in long term religious travel across its borders.  The Holy Land in Israel consists of a host of holy sites spread across the nation.

The most popular is the ‘Palace of Jews’ or the Qasr al-Yahud. This site is of great religious significance to Christians as it is considered to be the spot on the Jordon River where Jesus Christ was baptized.

However, the only concern when visiting pilgrim sites is that, most of these are located in the midst of minefields while Israel and the Jordanian Kingdom fight a long-drawn political battle over parts of the Holy Land. Again, due credit has to be paid to the Israel government’s efforts to remove mines and commencing renovation of the sites so that it becomes easier for tourists to travel comfortably into these areas.

Studies by Israel government have found that each tourist to these holy sites will on an average spend $1,700 per visit. Considering the potential of this growing travel segment, Israel’s Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov says that the main intention of the government is to not only encourage more and more Christians to travel to Israel for the revenue but"to have satisfied tourists. Each then becomes the ambassador of good will [for] the state of Israel. It’s very important to us."

Israel is going all out to encourage Christian followers is evident from the fact that the Minister for Public Diplomacy, Yuli Edelstein, himself made an effort to meet with the visiting group of American Evangelical pastors and other broadcasters, though it was a small group.  The effect of the meeting was evident, for Pastor Joseph Davis, from a Dallas Church said that, " I will go back home and tell Americans what is really going on in the Holy Land today. It troubles me greatly to hear that Israel is still at the place of talking about giving away land. I personally don’t believe that giving away more land is going to solve the issue."

While other pilgrims likeGraber, from the German Lutheran Church for Isreal, say that it is rather difficult to complete alienate politics from religion in the Holy Land and therefore encourages visitors to focus more on the spiritual aspects of the visit rather than the politics of the region, "There are so-called fact-finding missions and often I have the impression that they have found their facts ahead, before they come and here they just want to reconfirm the facts they found ahead and that’s not good."

Uwe Graber further adds that, "actually meet the people who live here, especially people of non-Christian faiths..Jews, Muslims, Druze and Bahai, will make for the most valuable kind of pilgrimage. "

By TravelMole Staff Writer