More than 700 guests came to the Bavarian State Parliament for lectures and discussion forums under the motto ‘Servus Israel, Shalom Bavaria!’. The occasion for the event, organised in cooperation with the Consul General of the State of Israel for Southern Germany and the Bavarian State Government Commissioner for Jewish Life, Combating Anti-Semitism, Remembrance Work and Cultural Heritage, was the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Israel and Germany.
In her opening speech, State Parliament President Ilse Aigner emphasised: ‘We are celebrating this friendship, which is anything but granted. Today we are shining a spotlight on our friendship and the success stories of this great country. And yet, since 7 October 2023, a shadow has been cast over Israel, its people and all those who feel with them – including us. We also want to give space to shock, pain and grief.’ She recalled the victims of the Hamas massacre, the hostages killed and the survivors and ‘the presumed 24 people who are currently still going through hell in the clutches of Hamas’.
However, the President of the State Parliament also focussed on the victims on the other side in her speech: ‘The images and news that have reached us since then, particularly from the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and the West Bank, leave hardly anyone cold. Innocent people are suffering there too. Children, mothers and fathers are dying.’ With regard to the reporting and assessment of the conflict, Aigner also criticised: ‘Why do so many people – including and especially in this country – make such a damn easy job of this complex conflict?’ She continued: ‘How can we report on Gaza without remembering 7 October, the massacres at the Nova festival and in the kibbutzim? How can one judge the attacks on supposedly civilian infrastructure without explaining Israel’s dramatic dilemma? That Hamas is provoking the Israeli attacks, firing rockets from there or entrenching itself there. Where do so many people get this conviction that Israel is only the perpetrator and not the victim?’
In conclusion, Aigner emphasised: ‘The people of Israel are close to my heart. We are connected by history and in the present, by our belief in democracy, in human dignity and by the desire for freedom and peace for all those who can live and let live.’
In the panel discussion that followed, the Consul General of the State of Israel, Talya Lador-Fresher, described the beginnings of relations between Israel and Bavaria: from 1948 to 1953, there had been an Israeli Consulate General in Munich as a contact point for survivors and displaced persons in southern Germany. Since the reopening of the Consulate General in 2011, it is now the only Consulate General of Israel in the EU alongside the embassies.
Dr Jenny Hestermann from the University of Jewish Studies in Heidelberg offered a ride through the history of the State of Israel in her keynote speech. In it, she also dispelled existing claims about Israel. ‘Israel did not come into being solely as a result of the Holocaust, but had a much longer history,’ explained the academic. Even the culture of remembrance, which is currently often perceived as rigid and inflexible, is not a political construct, but was created in the 1980s in a struggle from below through the demands of academia and the civilian population.
In a moving conversation with Dafna Gerstner, a survivor of the massacre of 7 October 2023, Dr Ludwig Spaenle, Bavarian State Government Commissioner for Jewish Life, Combating Anti-Semitism, Remembrance Work and Cultural Heritage, expressed his shock at the massive rise in anti-Semitism since then: ‘The perpetrator-victim reversal is working,’ said Spaenle. He regretted: ‘This is the new quality of anti-Semitism, that Jewish people are being persecuted again in this country.’
In the afternoon, speakers discussed the possibilities for more intensive cooperation in four discussion forums on the topics of remembrance culture, Bavarian-Israeli encounters, science and business. The relationship with Israel is a particularly important topic in academia: ‘Universities are a place from which hatred of Jews emanates,’ said Dr Spaenle. Dr Lou Bohlen, in turn, spoke of the difficulties since 7 October 2023, for example in filling committees. ‘We can’t afford to boycott Israeli science,’ the Head of the Middle East Department of the Max Planck Society stated.
The Bavarian-Israeli Friendship Day concluded with a panel discussion with an impulse from Volker Beck, President of the German-Israeli Society – not least to signal once again that Israel and Bavaria have been closely linked in the past and will continue to be in the future.
Source: Bayerischer Landtag (in German)