A pilgrim’s guide to the land of our Lord

By Dennis O’Connor

TEL AVIV — I knew immediately things were going to be very different in Israel when our tour guide, Rivka, asked me not to take a photograph of the grand entrance to David Ben-Gurion airport, just outside this Mediterranean city.

"For reasons of security," she smiled and shrugged. So, for the moment, I put my camera away.

The government of Israel, in an effort to reach out to one of its most important tourist clientele — Christians from North America — had invited us and numerous other groups, media and travel consultants, to help rebuild the country’s battered tourism industry. Over recent years, those associated with the industry have suffered from the violence of the Palestinian Intifada and the short conflict with Lebanon last summer.

To be sure, there are challenges involved in a visit to the Holy Land. Since the state of Israel was declared in 1948, there have been armed conflicts — full-fledged wars and outbreaks of terrorism — surrounding the landscape that is sacred ground to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. In discussions with those involved in the management of groups visiting holy sites in Israel, I was struck by the solemn nature of their reports. In this small country the size of New Jersey, tourism associated with pilgrimages from the United States remains an important part of the nation’s economic infrastructure. And tourism is down, down, down.

I had a telling conversation with the manager of the museum that was built around the "Jesus Boat" discovered in mud flats along the Sea of Galillee, and she recalled how, during the conflict with the Islamic political group called Hezbollah in Lebanon last summer, she had entire pilgrimage groups flee the museum and pack it in for home.

"We have good bomb shelters here, so nobody was in any real danger," was her final note to me, a puzzling outlook that certainly is foreign to anyone I know in the states who hadn’t done a stint in ’Nam.

And yet, the pilgrims did come and continue to arrive here to follow the footsteps of our Lord in places like Nazareth, the Galilee and ultimately along the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, that most sacred of all cities in the world, leading up to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which celebrates the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ in situ.

A visit to the land of our Lord is the dream of a lifetime for many, and in recent years, that dream has been deferred for many who fear the dangerous situation that envelopes the Middle East at large and Israel specifically.

The question then begs, is such a pilgrimage worth the risk? That, ultimately, is an individual decision, but the answer for me was simple.

CT PHOTO BY DENNIS O’CONNOR

An Israeli youth bags apples for a customer in a market in Tel Aviv, Israel’s energetic city located on the Mediterranean Sea.