Someone's Wailing on Our Wall.
 
An evangelical group wants to build an anti-abortion center in Wichita, Kansas, that if all goes according to plan, will have a full scale replica of Jerusalem's Western Wall as part of its design.

Proposed by pastors of the World of Life Church which owns the site, the as yet unfunded project, whose architectural rendering suggests an updated 1970's business park, would be called the International Pro-Life Memorial & National Life Center.

With a view of turning Wichita into the "prolife capital of the world," the purpose of the center,  according to the project's web site, will be to "stop world wide genocide."

"60 million little baby boys and girls have been murdered since 1973 in America alone," informs the project's web site, http://www.prolifememorial.com/

The replica wall, which the site refers to as "The Wailing Wall," a term not often used in the Jewish community, will be situated directly across from a field of sixty crosses, symbolizing those "60 million abortions."

"[The Western Wall] is a place that memorializes what happened during the Holocaust," Pastor Mark Holick, the spokesman for the anti-abortion project was quoted in the Forward as saying.

Not surprisingly, in the Jewish community, the project has hit a wall of another kind--indignant opposition.
 
"Over the years we have seen a number of anti-abortion groups compare abortion to the Holocaust, but this takes the misuse of Jewish symbolism and history to another level," said Abraham Foxman, National director of the anti-Defamation League.

"The Western Wall, this monumental symbol of Jewish grief and redemption is being co-opted and distorted to promote an anti-abortion agenda and message," Foxman added.

Regardless of your views on abortion, is misappropriating a Jewish symbol and holy place with so many levels of significance to Israel and the world-wide Jewish community the way to go here?

For many Jews, the Western Wall symbolizes the rebirth of a nation, ties to the land, and outright joy; attempting to have the Kotel symbolize death, is just one big religious and cultural buzzkill.

It's understandable that with all the Christian end-of-days interest in Israel--the holy land and pilgrimage tours--that to some, that as a result of the acculturation, it now seems perfectly natural to build a copy of Jewish life's most iconic symbol closer to home.

As a result, with schemes like this, it becomes painfully apparent that for some Christians, even the Israel landscape is up for grabs.

The illustration even shows the wall with people standing in front of it.  Are they shoving little crosses into the cracks?

Why not find a more appropriate structure to replicate?

If an historic structure symbolizing death is what is wanted--why not instead reproduce one with some Christian yichus (heritage) like a wall from the Roman Coliseum--a place of Christian martyrdom?

Or what about copying a castle from the crusades? With dramatic stone keeps and high vaulting, many of those even come from Israel.

Just think, to help cover the project's mortgage, in the gift shop they could even sell replica suits of armor--good protection when the pro-choicers come calling.

Edmon J. Rodman has written about making his own matzah for JTA, Jewish love music for the Jerusalem Post, yiddisheh legerdemain for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, a Bernie Madoff Halloween mask for the Forward, and what really gets stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits for the Los Angeles Times. He has edited several Jewish population studies, and is one of the founders of the Movable Minyan, an over twenty-year-old chavura-size, independent congregation. He once designed a pop-up seder plate. In 2011 Rodman received a First Place Simon Rockower Award for "Excellence in Feature Writing" from the American Jewish Press Association."