The chairman of the German-Israeli Society, Mayor Markus Püll, was able to welcome 25 new members to the DIG, which has been active since 1973, at an information event in the Jewish Community Center. He praised their entry as “an important sign of solidarity with the State of Israel and as an active commitment against any form of anti-Semitism. Markus Puell (left). here with the new members Benedikt Grotehans, Ludger Baack and Tim Jehles in the synagogue of the community center, commemorated the 1,200 Israeli victims of the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023 and expressed his hope that the 101 Israeli hostages held by Hamas will be healthy in the foreseeable future can return to their families and friends. He also hopes that it will not be too long “before we can offer information trips to Israel again after a peaceful settlement of the current conflict.” With the new members, the German-Israeli Society for Mülheim Duisburg and Oberhausen now has 160 members.
The Mülheim photographer and Ruhr Prize winner Heiner Schmitz, who is involved in the German-Palestinian Society, also shares the solidarity of the German-Israeli Society with the victims and hostages of Hamas. But he also sees the need for solidarity with regard to the 41,000 people who, according to the United Nations and the Palestinian Ministry of Health, have been killed in military retaliatory strikes by the Israeli army since the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023. The current escalation of the Middle East conflict has caused a lot of suffering on both sides.
As a reminder: In 2000, when Israel and the PLO were still negotiating a peace solution in the Middle East, young people from Mülheim’s twin town of Kfar Saba (Israel) and its neighboring Palestinian community of Qalqilya took part in an international youth meeting organized by the Mülheim town twinning association
