Parliament to host exhibit on Jews’ 3,500-year-old ties to Holy Land

The House of Commons is to host a UNESCO exhibition looking at Jews’ 3,500-year old links to the land of Israel, ahead of the centenary of the Balfour Declaration.

The travelling exhibit, created by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, is called: “People, Book, Land: The 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People with the Holy Land,” and opens on Monday.

It has already toured Paris, New York, Israel, India, the Vatican and several smaller European states, such as Montenegro and Albania.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, is the exhibition’s patron, but the creator was the late Hebrew University Professor Robert Wistrich, the award-winning author and former chair of Jewish Studies at University College London.

Simon Wiesenthal Centre director Shimon Samuels said: “The Holy Land is the crossroads for the identities of faiths and peoples. Our exhibition traces the Jewish narrative, its contributions to civilisation and its interstices with Christianity and Islam.”

He added: “Mutual respect and acknowledgment of each other’s heritage is a vital step for peace.”