A video released around Easter by Jews for Jesus showing Jesus Christ walking to his death at Auschwitz has gone viral, racking up over a million views and receiving loads of criticism on the way; even reaching the media in Israel. 

According to Susan Perlman, the Director of Communications for Jews for Jesus, the film is getting more than 100,000 views a day. "This is way beyond our expectations," Perlman had said according to various news outlets.

"We wanted to start a conversation about Jesus," Perlman said to Israel Today. "We felt it was time to address the negative idea that believing in Jesus is not a Jewish thing to do."

The video shows a man portraying Jesus walking into Auschwitz carrying a huge cross on his shoulder. The crucifixion of Christ has never been an easy event in history for the Jewish people, and many are not happy about combining it with the Holocaust.

"We decided to use the well-known iconic image of Jesus dragging his cross. We wanted people to clearly recognize Jesus in the film," Perlman, one of the founders of the Jews for Jesus who has been serving since 1972, stated. Some Israeli newspapers are headlining their stories with a quote from the Jewish website "Forward," calling the film "the most tasteless YouTube video ever."

She continued, "Jesus has often been wrongly associated with the perpetrators of the Holocaust." Adding, "In reality, he is to be identified with the victims. As a Jew, Jesus may well have suffered the same fate of the six million who perished in the concentration camps."

The video showed that if Jesus had been in Auschwitz, he would have died a nameless victim with a number on his arm. The video was certainty a heartfelt attempt by the organization to help Jewish people understand faith in God and Jesus after the Holocaust as admirable and sobering. According to Perlman, the film was directed by Herb Kossover, a well-known Messianic Jewish Hollywood filmmaker.

"We expected this kind of reaction to the film," said Perlman, addressing all of the negative reactions to the film from the Jewish community. "We are trying to stimulate a conversation over a difficult issue." Some Messianic Jewish groups in Israel believe that the strategy may backfire and further alienate Jews from Jesus.

Jews for Jesus is an organization whose mission statement is "to make the messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to "¦ Jewish people worldwide."

The short film can be viewed in twelve different languages including Hebrew, Russian, Polish and German. Watch the clip below: