Germany – Berlin’s landmark, the Brandenburg Gate, was lit up in the colors of the Israeli flag on Monday night in solidarity with the victims of a truck ramming in Jerusalem a day earlier, which killed four Israeli soldiers.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Sunday’s attack in Jerusalem came some three weeks after a similar incident in Berlin killed 12 people when a truck ploughed through a crowded Christmas market.
“What is so moving and important about seeing on the Brandenburg Gate the Israeli flag is that it’s a sign of solidarity,” said South Africa’s chief rabbi, Warren Goldstein.
Goldstein said he was in Berlin to give a speech at nearby Humboldt University earlier in the evening and then passed by after being told of the illumination.
“It’s a recognition of the fact that democracies throughout the world, civilized people, civilized values throughout the world are under attack and under threat,” Goldstein said.
“The way to defeat the threats in the world is when good people come together and stand shoulder to shoulder with one another, whether it is in Germany or in Israel or in France or America. Wherever it may be, we all stand together,” said the chief rabbi.
Andrew Walde, who was carrying a large Israeli flag, said he had fallen in love with the country ever since he first visited Israel in 1980.
Asked what his thoughts were when he heard about the Jerusalem attack, three weeks after Berlin’s Christmas market carnage, Walde said “it happened the same brutal way and my thoughts were immediately with the people in Israel, the victims, their families.”
In recent times, the Brandenburg Gate has been lit in national colors to express solidarity with different countries, such as after the Paris attacks.
Most recently, Berlin’s landmark was draped in the colors of Turkey after the January 2 attack on an Istanbul night club.
WoW, so powerful and chilling in symbolism and history. To Germany I say Danke!
How very nice.
It should be noted that in Berlin, during World War Two, over 1,000 Jews were able to hide, and survived the war. When the Russians liberated Berlin in 1945, they literally tore the place to shreds, as they took revenge on their oppressors. There were many Jewish Russian officers in the Red Army, who assisted survivors of the Holocaust, who, against all odds, survived in Berlin. There was a book written about the above entitled “The Last Jews of Berlin”.
In 2017 Germany is far and away the best place to be Yid in all of Europe. Seventy-two years have changed many things, nicht wahr?