A Promised Land

It was a little over a year ago, during the 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, that A Promised Land first caught my attention. I remember sitting in a packed out auditorium, damp and grumpy from the traditional festival showers, wishing I was propped up at some cosy Old Town bar getting acquainted with a sweet cider and a sweeter barmaid.
But, as this was clearly not to be, I shuffled off my winter duffle and settled in for what I predicted to be yet another emotionally manipulative, rather dull, exploration (exploitation?) of the holocaust.
To my surprise and delight it was nothing of the sort, though undeniably and unashamedly emotionally charged. And, to its credit, it was so much more than a drama of genocide. Thank goodness. For, in this day and age, if you are going to discuss the holocaust then you must surely also confront the question of Israel and Palestine.
However, being a sympathiser of the Palestinian cause and a firm critic of the Israeli state (some might say terrorist state); I did find some aspects of the play to be quite biased and simplistic.  And whilst the teary eyed crowd around me rose with thunderous applause upon the close, I found myself not intoxicated with the joy and optimism that perfumed the night air, but instead possessed with a sleepy, nightmarish rage. Is everybody here brainwashed? Is nobody in this room aware of the horrendous, Nazi like crimes (Yes, I said it!) that have been committed and continue to be committed by the Israeli thugs? Or are they, perhaps, in denial? ....Or am I being unfair? Have I made a mistake? Have I got it all horribly wrong?
Perhaps. And so, fast forward to 2010.
A Promised Land. I wasn’t going to, but I was curious to see whether they had reassessed at all given what has happened since we last met. The internationally condemned storming of a Gaza aid convoy. The continuing settlement construction on Palestinian territory. The Dubai assassination.....But also, if my own views had changed. To see if I had, in fact, been a little unfair in my previous assessment.
And so, once more, damp and grumpy, sweet ciders and barmaids, winter duffles.....here we go.
It is Edinburgh, 1947. The Second World War is over and the Nazi horror camps, the lasting symbols of man’s inhumanity to man, are closed. Now, there is a wild, Europe wide refugee crisis, Palestine is being torn apart and the British Empire is falling to its knees.
Rivka Feldman, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor, has entered Scotland alone, illegally and armed. Why is she here? Why the gun? The British army wants answers. And so we journey back to the infamous factories of death, uncovering murder, brutality, courage and promises. A promise to Jane Haining. And a promise of a Promised Land.
The most interesting and moving aspect of the play is the journey of Jane Haining. Whilst Rivka Feldman is a work of fiction, her Scottish friend is one of the greatest Scots, if not the greatest, of the 20th Century. However, like most true greats, it is unlikely that you have ever heard of her.
Jane Haining was a Church Of Scotland Missionary. She became Matron at the Scottish Mission School in Budapest, Hungary, in 1932 and looked after 50 of the schools 400 pupils. Most of these pupils were Jews.

When war broke out she was ordered to return to Scotland, but refused to leave the children. When the Nazis invaded Hungary in March, 1944, she was once again ordered to depart. She did not. The next month she was arrested and was later moved on to Auschwitz where she died. Jane was prisoner number 79467 and was one of ten Scots thought to have lost their lives at the extermination camps. She is the only Scot ever to be honoured as Righteous Among The Nations at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and, on March 9th 2010, she was posthumously awarded with the new British Heroes of the Holocaust award having saved hundreds of Hungarian Jewish children from the gas chambers.
A figure worthy of mention. A figure deserving of celebration. A beacon of hope and the most beautiful tribute to the human spirit in the face of bloody hell.
And yet, somehow, though the play is set around her, it is all overshadowed by the same kind of nonsense that I remember it for. Rivka thoughtlessly blurts out the most ludicrous statements. “We can live with the Palestinians if they can live with us”.....Anybody who reads the news even badly knows that that is simply not true.
One might make the argument that the play is set in 1947 and that such ridiculous statements, one of far too many, were meant sincerely at the time. That is all very well, but A Promised Land was not written in 1947 and those views cannot wash with any vague hope of sincerity today.
On the up side, the performances are outstanding. Corrine Harris, who plays both Rivka Feldman and Jane Haining, is frightening in her commitment and passion to the role. Equally, John McColl gives it everything and then some. It is astonishing to note that his debut was with A Promised Land only last year. In fact, you can see that everybody involved, from the writing to the lighting, are so passionate about this project and believe 100% in what they are doing. And that, no matter what you think of the end product, is admirable.
But the holes are simply too large to ignore, leap or step around. But nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. And as the crowd around me roars, I bury my head into my hands in utter despair. It’s a mad, mad, mad world.