the Christian Century has published reporting and essays on the role of faith in a pluralistic society Contact Us   Privacy Policy helps German church honor sanctuary's Jewish history doesn’t know where in Europe his ancestors lived But it could have been a town like Flieden where there was a Jewish community from 1562 until 1938 On November 9, 1938, the Flieden synagogue’s windows were broken during Kristallnacht, when Nazis vandalized synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses throughout Germany. The Nazis also burned the Flieden congregation’s Torah scrolls and other sacred objects, according to a website recording the history of synagogues in Germany and a Protestant parish purchased it in the early 1950s a Jewish woman who came to see the sanctuary where her father celebrated his bar mitzvah in 1899 The church wanted to honor the sanctuary’s Jewish history through stained-glass windows made by a Jewish artist whose work has included church windows as well as a sculpture for a Holocaust memorial museum in Rhode Island Zeitz visited Flieden and met Thomas Fendert the only person in the church who spoke English who has since become “like a brother” to Zeitz Fendert took Zeitz to the local Jewish cemetery where all of the last names on the tombstones were familiar to him He learned about some of the German people’s suffering after the war and how they’re responding to Syrian refugees today Then Zeitz spoke to a group of about 75 at the church and how I didn’t know which country he was from,” he said “It was very emotional,” for him as well as for the congregation Fendert visited Martha’s Vineyard in September and the Flieden church is beginning to explore a relationship with the congregation at the Martha’s Vine­yard Hebrew Center wrote by e-mail that he is grateful to God for creating these connections “from our small village over the ocean.” The first Protestant people came to Flieden as refugees after World War II They bought the former synagogue from a Jewish organization and renovated it Nothing remained of the former synagogue interior “Former generations were very radical in eliminating every part of the synagogue,” Biehn wrote The congregation’s hope is to remember not only the destruction and sorrow of Kristallnacht and World War II but to celebrate the whole Jewish history in Flieden through the windows as well as through lectures and events at the church “Former generations tried to ignore the things that happened,” Biehn wrote “Now we look for a honest interaction with the history.” Biehn sees God’s hand in the congregation meeting Marie Ariel who brought pictures of the sanctuary as a synagogue That led to connecting with Jewish families in the U.S And he trusts that “God will have some further amazing ideas,” he wrote “Our project will be a little part of the big reconciliation between all people.” Zeitz, while working on the stained glass for the church, is raising money to create a second set of windows for the Hebrew Center using the same frames. They now have a nonprofit sponsor so that donations are tax-deductible as they seek to raise another $100,000 for the Flieden project and $100,000 for the second set of windows in the Martha’s Vineyard synagogue (details are available at www.facebook.com/barneyzeitzfineart/) Zeitz designed the windows with a landscape on which Numbers 6:24–26 is written in Hebrew and German “It’s this shared prayer for peace—Aaron’s prayer the priestly prayer—that Christians and Jews have been using for thousands of years,” he said “It all ends in the word peace” in windows on either side of the altar “When you walk into this church you’ll have this vision of these prayers running toward the front,” he said Zeitz begins with panes of single-color glass re-fused quality to it—I’d call it magical,” he said The windows will also include the star of David He sees displaying that Jewish symbol as a “major step” for a Protestant church Zeitz is aware of five or six German churches meeting in sanctuaries that were once synagogues the Flieden parish is the first to do more than mount a plaque noting that history The windows instead commemorate the Jewish people who lived in the town for centuries sincere acknowledgment—it makes me feel like I can go over there and say which has updated information in the online version We would love to hear from you. Let us know what you think about this article by writing a letter to the editors Cardinals' homilies before conclave speak volumes African Hebrew Israelites finally see legal victory against Israel's deportation threats Have things changed for women since the time of Mary Magdalene and essays on the role of faith in a pluralistic society.      Contact Us  Privacy Policy Two months ago, we ran a story (bit.ly/BarneyZeitz) about Barney Zeitz’s plan to create stained glass windows for a church — once a synagogue — in Flieden to memorialize the Jewish history of the town Valerie Sonnenthal recently checked in to see how it’s going I caught up with Barney Zeitz at his studio shortly after his return from his first trip to Flieden a woman from Cambridge who was interested in helping to get windows made for the old synagogue (which her father had attended); she had learned about Barney and his glasswork through her friend Pam Goff of Chilmark Barney was struck by the number of people who came up to him to share stories Some were locals whose family had buried Torahs and holy books for the course of the war and returned them when local Jews showed up after its end; others were not so proud and brought Barney to visit the Jewish cemetery Barney describes the beauty of the location with billowing wheat fields leading to a small grove of trees still in good shape with a gate surrounding it The biggest surprise for Barney was that every name — whether first or last — was a name he is familiar with: Gottlieb On the day Barney presented his ideas to the church committee a film crew from German TV ZDF showed up (thanks to Islander Angela Andersen Barney said the presentation went on for almost three hours; they discussed whether the human figure should be in the windows He spent a morning drawing inside the church with the local art club’s members Barney said 60 people showed up: “The first was the mayor with a small bag with a wooden pen and pencil set as a present for me.” Marie Ariel explained that he became dedicated to preserving the history of the Jews in the town and “is the person responsible for putting a plaque on the outside of the church that commemorates the fact that the building was a synagogue His insistence on memorializing the history of the Jews is somewhat remarkable.” starting with thin plywood and the correct measurements We moved from studio to house to look at glass samples he just brought from New York Barney gets even more animated when he talks about techniques he may employ and ideas he has He looks forward to experimenting with laminating and how using epoxy on the back adds an ethereal shimmer quality for the viewer After using German glass for 40 years (they stopped making glass that can be fused two years ago) “The idea for the imagery is to take the Star of David crosses and Christian symbols and fuse ’em into glass and there might even be more than one layer it’s all part of a landscape that’s moving and uplifting So I’m hoping that if I can do some studies it will show what it feels like to look at.” “Is the Tree of Life window a definite for the church?” Barney replied it’s the same exact one as at the Hebrew Center here.” Barney will be showing his work at the 20th annual Vineyard Artisans Festival and he plans to share some of his studies then Follow Barney’s Flieden project at bzeitz.com, or email him at barneyzeitz@yahoo.com The MV Times comment policy requires first and last name for all comments On the bole of an old oak tree along State Road in Tisbury a simple white board bears the block-letter words GERMAN CHURCH FORMER SYNAGOGUE GLASS WINDOW PROJECT Turn up the driveway most Wednesday nights in July and Barney Zeitz will show you the final set of stained glass windows he’s been designing over the past four years they hang in heavy arch-topped frames of steel that he welded himself The panes have been fired multiple times as Zeitz added layers and fragments of color to the design light pours through majestic purple mountainsides and green hills which makes it all the more difficult to draw a line from Zeitz’s glowing windows to Kristallnacht – the “Night of Broken Glass” – an orgy of Nazi violence eighty years ago this November that destroyed more than 250 synagogues across Germany and Austria these windows will head from Martha’s Vineyard to a Protestant church in Flieden that owns a dark and sorrowful history: it had been the local synagogue until Kristallnacht when storm troopers and militarized civilians desecrated the ancient house of worship Zeitz has been working on the church windows since 2015 a Cambridge woman whose father had been bar mitzvahed at the Flieden synagogue Visiting the Flieden church on a trip to her family’s former hometown Ariel had learned the pastor wanted to find a Jewish artist to create new windows as part of a building renovation that would link the present with the past “It’s a remembrance,” Zeitz said of the windows project “It’s not a Holocaust memorial; it’s not really about forgiving anybody; it’s not even an apology from the Germans It’s acknowledging that Jews lived in this town for almost 500 years a Fall River native who moved to the Island in 1972 and taught himself glass art and metal sculpture here Hailing from an industrious South Coast family – New Bedford’s Zeiterion Theatre was built in 1923 by a great-uncle also named Barney – Zeitz became an artist after he landed on the Vineyard at age twenty-one and decided to stay “I taught myself how to do glass here on the porch of a house where I was living,” he recalled “I learned how to solder and I made little boxes and mirrors.” The first piece he sold was a lamp – “a little kerosene lamp with a shade,” Zeitz recalled “I put it on David Crohan’s piano at the Rare Duck [a former lounge on Circuit Avenue in Oak Bluffs] and it sold that night.” That was the night Zeitz became a working artist but friends of the buyers commissioned Zeitz to make them a chandelier “It was like this incredible sign to keep going,” he said he purchased property off State Road in Tisbury and a year later built the studio and home where he lives with his wife a longtime Island drama teacher whose nonprofit Phyllis Vecchia Creative Drama is in its twenty-second year a graduate of Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School is studying social work at New York University “I really did find the place that is right for me,” he said there’s a fair amount of interesting clutter in Zeitz’s studio – pieces of metal sculptural works in progress – just as one might expect of an artist’s studio that’s been in continuous use since 1986 You only have so much time,” he said and the welding equipment, an old-fashioned anvil and hammer. “Nothing’s really fancy The welders that I have are from the ’80s,” he said “They’re really old and they work.” Zeitz has repaired stained glass windows for three Island churches it was a lifesaver,” he said at his Tisbury studio last spring he cleaned and replaced the leading in nearly forty 1870s-era windows for the United Methodist Church in the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association among other places: the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center in Vineyard Haven the twelve-foot-tall Immigrant Memorial located near Plymouth Rock and the similarly sized Holocaust Memorial at the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center in Providence as well as at the Rodef Shalom temple in Pittsburgh a joyous window called “Enter Into His Gates with Praise” at the Pittsburgh temple appealed to the German building committee that Ariel had convinced to consider Zeitz’s work They also felt that the fused glass technique Zeitz has developed – in which colored fragments and powdered glass are combined in a mosaic without being separated by lead solder – would be the appropriate replacement for windows once smashed during Kristallnacht “There’s something very fitting about it,” Zeitz said “I start with a plain color and I will literally hit it with a sledgehammer and screen it into different grades.” the building committee flew Zeitz to Germany so he could meet with members of the church in Flieden a small town northeast of Frankfurt in Hesse state “This little town is a good example of where Jews lived,” Zeitz said “My ancestors were from somewhere near there The name Zeitz is very German and there is even a little city called Zeitz about two hours from Flieden.” Zeitz reckons that on his next trip to Germany he will visit the city that bears his name but in 2015 he wanted to spend all his time in Flieden and I did a drawing thing where I was available at the church and people just showed up – about seventy-five people including the mayor of the town and the mayor’s father As Zeitz was sketching in charcoal and absorbing the Germans’ desire to honor their lost Jewish neighbors – “it’s really a deep thing for them,” he said – the church members were smitten with his creative energy A translation of the Flieden Church Synagogue project website reads: “It felt a bit like a vacation…as if the big wide world was blowing through Flieden. So there comes one from the U.S who has not been in Germany for more than forty years (and never in Hesse) and wants to get to know the place and the people for whom he should work. Then followed four days of extraordinary encounters and a warm welcome. And in the end there was the realization: Barney Zeitz is the right man for a redesign of our church and we are the right place for his ideas.” Working in the studio behind his rural Tisbury home Zeitz has completed five of six arched windows for the Flieden church There will be three on either side of the sanctuary each gleaming with the bright metal oxides Zeitz brushes between layers of glass to create luminous effects “It just glows a certain way,” he said gesturing to the panels of the latest completed window Across each set of three windows Zeitz is inscribing the same prayer in Hebrew on one side of the church and in German on the other “Originally it was going to be a separate prayer for each window,” Zeitz said seasonal Chilmark resident Arthur Obermayer suggested a single prayer that is part of both Jewish and Christian liturgies who was eighty-four and ailing at the time Known as Aaron’s Priestly Prayer or The Priestly Blessing in the Hebrew Book of Numbers it is given by God to Moses to deliver to Aaron and the rest of the Israelites “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.” Because German reads from left to right and Hebrew from right to left the two translations in Zeitz’s windows will parallel each other phrase for phrase from the front of the church to the back ending with “peace” on either side That final word will be emphasized in the glasswork “‘Peace’ will sparkle a little more,” said Zeitz Since visiting Flieden and starting the windows the artist has become close friends with the head of the church rebuilding committee and we FaceTime every week,” Zeitz said Fendert traveled to the Vineyard to see the first completed window “We had a service at the Hebrew center and it was incredibly moving,” Zeitz said Vineyard donors have been generous in supporting the Flieden windows Along with private donations and funding from the German state church the Flieden parish’s renovation budget covered the first three windows Other funding came from donations processed through the Permanent Endowment for Martha’s Vineyard hand-welded steel angel ($85–$175) and osprey ($100) ornaments What ensured the project would make it across the finish line was a grant awarded this past spring by the European Union meaning Zeitz can now concentrate on completing the final window His hope is that they will be installed by the spring of 2019 Which means that if you want to see any of the windows without traveling to Germany it’s time to make your pilgrimage to the bend in State Road