About

Filmmaker’s Bio

Filmmaker Christy Peters worked for a number of years in Development with FG Media (Chaos Theory, Intersection, Rififi) in conjunction with Radar Pictures (The Last Samurai, Heartbreak Kid, Swing Vote) and Warner Brothers Studios.  She has an MFA in film production from Chapman University and has several short films to her credit that she has written, produced and directed.

Christy has always had a passion for filmmaking.  Her greatest passion, however, is for the Lord Jesus Christ and to see all of His purposes for the earth fulfilled.   Her desire is to use film and the arts to facilitate the completion of those purposes, through the Holy Spirit, in whatever way possible.  She is a producer, writer, director and artist, but sees herself first and foremost a child and a passionate worshipper of Yeshua.

Story/Synopsis

Most Israelis would never parallel the execution of Christ and the sufferings of the Jewish nation during the Holocaust.  In light of the 20 centuries of rejection and persecution in Europe and Eastern Europe by those who identified themselves as followers of Christ, most modern Jews do not see how the sufferings of Christ has anything to do at all with their historical suffering.  They tend to place Christ and his followers in an adversarial role, viewed almost as the catalyst that helped to break their spirits, so as to make them more vulnerable to being victimized by the Holocaust.  This viewpoint, considering the historical circumstances, is to be expected.

However, One artist named Rick Weineke who lives in a city in the Negev has done just that.  He has created a sculpture 60 feet wide and 12 feet tall, called the Fountain of Tears.  The sculpture shows how, through the course of suffering His own execution, Christ is able to identify and empathize with his Jewish brothers and sisters who suffered during the Holocaust.

The sculpture follows the seven last words of Christ that he spoke during his execution.  It is made up of seven panels.  Each panel has a carving of Christ hanging on the cross, carved into a 60 foot wall made of Jerusalem stone.  Standing in front of each panel is a corresponding bronze sculpture of a Holocaust victim, whose head is shaved and who wears the characteristic striped prison garb.  Each panel shows one of the stages of grieving that each went through on their path towards death.  The sculpture is in fact a study of the grieving process.  On the third panel, Christ’s head is shaved and there is a number tattooed on his arm.  The corresponding Holocaust victim is shown crying out “My, God, My God, Why have you forsaken me”.  This was the historical cry of Jesus, right before he gave up his spirit.  This was also the chant of those Jewish men who were made to clean out the ovens and gas chambers after each mass slaughtering.  It is still the heart cry of many of the Holocaust survivors who cannot to this day account for how such an event could have possibly taken place.

Linda, who is an administrator of Yad Vashem, whose parents survived Auschwitz and whose husband is very influential member of the Knesset, is a friend of the Artist.  When she saw the sculpture, especially the panel where Christ’s head is shaved and his arm bears the tattooed number, she broke into tears.  She at that moment remembered when she was five years old and she would daily try to scrub the tattooed numbers off of her father’s arm, because she knew that it was the reason that he could not speak or communicate with her.  She was so profoundly touched by the image of Christ, suffering side by side with the Holocaust victims, that she asked the artist to make a scaled down version for her to put in her home.  She admitted that as a secular Jewish woman, the idea of Jesus as the messiah/healer had never made any sense to her whatsoever, but now felt that through the message of the sculpture there may be a pathway to healing for Holocaust survivors, and children of survivors, such as herself who had grown up profoundly affected by the brokenness and the pain of her parents.

The sculpture has been very controversial in the remote town that the artist lives in.  He has suffered threats by those who oppose its message.  It is not a popular message in Israel, yet dozens and dozens of Israeli Jews and Christians seek it out and testify that its message has impacted their lives.

I want to use the artist’s story and the message of the sculpture as bookends for the piece, and to fill in the body of the documentary discussing some examples of historical Jewish suffering from the Babylonian Captivity to the Spanish Inquisition; introduce the concept of martyrdom and how it is explained by Orthodox and Messianic Jews; discuss Israel’s eternal purposes and place in history; and to show how Christ’s sacrifice is a sign to all nations, and especially to Israel, that God deeply loves and has accepted every man and nation that will receive this love.

Vision/Purpose

I believe that we are in the beginning of the season in which the “full number of the Gentiles” appointed to come into the kingdom is nearing completion.  This means that it is the season in which the Lord is again favoring Israel, softening their hearts and drawing them as a people into the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.  As it says in Romans 11:25, 26:  “…Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the gentiles has come in.  And so, all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “the Deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.”

The Lord speaks of this again in Romans 11:11, 12:  “Again I ask, did they (Israel) stumble so as to fall beyond recovery?  Not at all!  Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious.  But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!”

And again in Romans 11: 23:  “And if they (Israel) do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.” (Here, the Apostle Paul is speaking of Israel as the natural branches of an olive tree that have been broken off, branches that the Father is willing to graft back into His original vine.)

In light of this reality I have two objectives for making this documentary.

1) I want to use it as a vehicle to help prepare those already in the Body of Christ to embrace and receive those belonging to Nation of Israel as they come into the fold in this season.

Over the past twenty centuries, roughly, between the destruction of the temple in 70 AD and the reestablishment of the Nation of Israel in 1948, the Jewish nation was scattered all over the world without a homeland.  During that period, and especially in Europe where 80 % of the world’s Jewish population lived, they were very poorly treated, rejected and were prohibited for centuries from owning their own businesses or executing commerce in any significant way, apart from lending money.[1] They were also forced to live in ghettos, separated from the Gentile neighborhoods.  In the fifteenth century, they were tortured and executed in Spain and in 1492 were finally expelled from the country, ironically only a few days before Christopher Columbus was sent by Spain to discover the “New World.”[2] Their suffering, however, culminated in the Holocaust, which happened during the final eight to ten years of their exile.

The church in Europe and Eastern Europe for centuries practiced a “replacement theology,”[3] believing that God had rejected Israel because Israel’s national leaders had rejected Christ.  Many thought that the Church had assumed Israel’s place and purpose both in history and on the earth therefore annihilating any purpose that Israel would otherwise have had.  Unfortunately, much of that same mentality is still alive and well in the Western Church.  I believe that part of the reason that the Jewish people suffered and were so terribly rejected for all those centuries was because the church did not really have a grasp of who Israel was, nor were they aware of the place that they have always had in the heart of the Father.  Israel has had very few friends and in many instances has not been able to rely on the Church to champion them, to love them, or to embrace them.  I feel that God is in the process of purifying our understanding about who the Nation of Israel is so that we can partner with them to fulfill their destiny as a nation and as a people.

2) I want to use it as a vehicle to help to open up the hearts of those belonging to Israel, so that they can receive the Father’s love for themselves through the death and resurrection of His son.

2000 years is a long time to suffer ongoing cultural rejection.  When Israel was reestablished as a Jewish nation 60 years ago, many of the new immigrants who settled there were people who had survived the concentration camps.  Those that emigrated did so to the tune of hostile threats from Israel’s powerful, oil-rich neighbors.  Because of these neighbors, Israel has had to consistently fight to maintain its autonomy.  In my opinion, the continual threat of war has not left them with much time to focus on healing their brokenness.

So, there still seems to be a lot of pain surrounding the Holocaust that lingers in the hearts of those belonging to the nation of Israel.  As I listen to the dialogue of Holocaust survivors, I notice that there are still many unresolved questions as to why a loving God would permit them as a nation to have suffered centuries of rejection, genocide, and continued attempts by surrounding neighbors to exterminate them.  I want to address some of these questions and to open up some dialogue that will hopefully help my audience to sort out some of the issues surrounding these questions.  My hope is that this film will be a valuable tool in helping Israel to see that the Father’s love for them has not changed and that Jesus is available to them and still wants to be accepted as their Messiah and healer.