As Britain prepares to mark the seventh Holocaust Memorial Day this weekend, with dozens of events organised around the country on the theme of “Imagine ... remember, reflect, react”, Israel's Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, Yona Metzger, has declared that the lesson of the Holocaust should be to prevent people from killing one another because they are of different religions. But he gave warning that this ideal will be difficult to achieve while there are extremist Muslims pursuing a goal of a global Islamic society. “We have a problem with some groups of Muslims,” he said. “The problem is not Christians as it was in the past.”

Rabbi Metzger, 54, who fought in Israel's 7th Armoured Tank Brigade and became the country's youngest Chief Rabbi when he was appointed in 2003, has visited Britain to honour the work of Young Magen David Adom, a UK fundraising arm of Magen David Adom, Israel's only medical emergency and blood bank service.

Rabbi Metzger, a charismatic and dynamic figure, has been at times a controversial Chief Rabbi. He and his supporters have complained that accusations of sexual harassment and exorbitant fees for weddings cannot be substantiated and are no more than smear campaigns organised by his enemies. Although his moral and ethical behaviour has been criticised in a report by Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz, criminal charges of bribery were dropped more than a year ago because of lack of evidence.

The rabbi made a point of personally thanking George Bush for his country's military intervention in Iraq on the President's recent visit to Israel. “I want to thank you for your support of Israel and in particular for waging a war against Iraq,” Rabbi Metzger said to Mr Bush, words which, according to The Jerusalem Post, warmed the President's heart.

He is the first Israeli Chief Rabbi to be born within the Holy Land, although he notes as an aside that his place of birth, Haifa, is not regarded as one of the most religious cities in Israel.

Rather like the Chief Rabbi of the UK's Orthodox community, Dr Jonathan Sacks, Rabbi Metzger has a knack for making friends outside his community, and is proving that he can survive the criticism from within.

The US broadcasting giant CBS chose him as one of the 12 most influential religious figures in the world in its December documentary In God's Name. The others included the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and the Dalai Lama.

Whatever his difficulties within Israel, outside it he is starting to show himself as a leader with the gift to transcend the national and religious boundaries within which he was born. This places him on a par with the Dalai Lama, in this respect at least, and it is the Dalai Lama whom he has asked to head the new organisation he is trying to set up, a religious United Nations, to be based in a country such as Italy or even New York.

Although he is vague on precisely how it would operate, and in what way it would be more than just another talking shop, he believes it is precisely such an organisation that could help to prevent another Holocaust, whether of Jewish people or of any ethnic or religious group.

During his Israel visit President Bush, who leaves office in January next year, made it clear that he hoped for a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians within the next year. He called for an end “to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza that began in 1967”. But as Rabbi Metzger pointed out, the chances of Israel permitting a return to the 1967 borders are minimal. The day before we spoke, in the Hendon offices of Magen David Adom in northwest London, he had been in the beleaguered southern Israel city of Sderot, half a mile from Gaza. On that one day alone, 54 missiles fell. He delivered a half-hour speech, during which time three bombs fell around him. Three-quarters of the children in Sderot, he says, are suffering from trauma. As far as he is concerned, there will be no giving back of half of Jerusalem.

But he is relentless in his efforts to promote peace in his own way. “Our aim is to talk with tongue and not with tanks,” he says. That is why he is promoting his concept of a “United Religions Nations”, as he describes it. “Every country will send a religious ambassador and we shall meet round the table and talk, even countries that do not have diplomatic relations.”

Lucid, coherent and full of stories, Metzger personifies the “imagine, remember, reflect” theme of Holocaust Memorial Day. His answer to the problems facing Israel and the Palestinians is “to use the power of language and not to use the physical power of guns and weapons”.

And maybe there is yet ground for hope. Because if there is one thing this chief among Israel's chief religous leaders does well, it is to talk.