View of the Tel Aviv skyline. The city is one of the largest economic centers in the Middle East Photo: picture alliance / picture agency online/Schöning
From Hildburg Bruns
Germany’s capital Berlin is officially partnered with 17 metropolises worldwide. Partner city No. 18 is to become Tel Aviv as the first Israeli city.
Berlin’s first city connection was Los Angeles (1967), the last on the list for the time being is London (2000). In the CDU/SPD coalition agreement, Black and Red are aiming for a new partnership with Tel Aviv.
The “white city” was founded in 1909 and built in the Bauhaus style (since 2003 UNESCO World Heritage Site) – in 1950 it merged with the ancient port city of Jaffa. The distance between Berlin and Tel Aviv is around 2850 kilometers.
Berlin’s CDU leader Kai Wegner (50) had advocated even closer city contacts with Israel in the past – as a clear signal to the past and a bridge to the future. So far, no formal partnership has been established with Jerusalem, the city of the Wailing Wall and Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem. Tel Aviv has long had connections to Cologne and Frankfurt/Main, among others.
On the other hand, the 1991 town twinning between Berlin and Moscow is on hold. Contacts with the Russian capital have been frozen since Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine. Berlin, on the other hand, wants to intensify contacts with Windhoek (Namibia).