The Fountain of Tears

  Our first day in Israel, we had the opportunity to visit the Fountain of Tears in Arad.  While we approached the humble looking building from the dusty parking lot, I had no idea how moving this experience would be.  Inside the tented building, was the Fountain of Tears: a “Sculptured dialogue of suffering between the Holocaust and the Crucifixion” created by artist Rick Wienecke, who has now  created and opened to the public a second Fountain of Tears in Poland, just outside the Death Gate of Auschwitz.  You can watch the same explanation we saw here: https://fountainoftears.org/
 In the Fountain of Tears, there are several frames with bronze figures with shaved heads in striped prisoner garb in the foreground, and a depiction of Christ languishing on the cross behind them. Pillars of rocks separate each scene, with rivulets of water streaming down, signifying the tears of the Father. There is a visual identification between Christ, writhing with pain upon the cross, and the Holocaust victims, as Jesus' head is shorn, and the number 1534 is tattooed upon his forearm, just as all prisoners of Auschwitz were tattooed with a number. Mark 15:34 is the cry from Scripture, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?"  It is this very cry that haunts the Sondercommando who recorded these tragic events in his memoir.  Sondercommandos were Jewish prisoners who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the poisoning and disposal of gas chamber victims during the Holocaust.  They lied to the prisoners to prevent revolt, reassuring them that they would be fed after they had taken their showers.  Once up to 2,500 people were sealed inside the chamber, the poison gas took nearly 20 minutes to bring death.  The screams of agony of the first ten minutes are seared upon his consciousness.  Psalm 22: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" was the loudest and most frequent cry.
 When the artist, Rick Wienecke, first began the sculpture, he said "I had a sense that this was not just a piece of art that we were about to do, but it was actually an intercession."  The viewers of this work are often deeply moved, and many healing tears by both Jew and Gentile have been shed here.  Putting the crucifixion and holocaust together has been a complete reframing of the crucifixion for the Jewish audience.  I was saddened to realize that the Jews look often at the image of the crucifixion of Jesus from their collective memory as being the most negative image ever, because the persecution toward them in Europe was often propagated by the church, and under the banner of them deserving punishment for being the "Christ killers." How ironic to lash out against the "Christ-killers" while failing to recognize that very lashing out as part of the reason why Christ had to come to die. The undeniable history of Christians being involved in Anti-Semitism through the ages is tragic, and compels me to be involved in the many opportunities for the prayerful work of blessing God's people Israel and doing the work of reconciliation.