Christian Lange, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection in Berlin, Germany, spent time in the city’s Rohr Chabad Center on Feb. 16 to express solidarity with the Jewish community following outbreaks of violence in Europe. The visit took place two days after a Jewish security guard was killed outside a synagogue in Copenhagen and six weeks after four Jewish men were killed outside a kosher grocery in Paris.
Lange visited the Chabad center’s synagogue and participated in prayer with Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, rabbi of the Berlin’s Jewish community, as well as lit a candle in memory of the Jewish lives lost. Also present was attorney Nathan Gelbart, chairman of Keren Hayesod Germany and a member of the Central Council of Jews in Germany’s arbitration court.
The three men then discussed the current situation facing European Jewry and the rise of anti-Semitism throughout the continent. Rabbi Yitzchok Loewenthal, director of Chabad of Denmarkin Copenhagen, also participated in the conversation by phone.
Lange assured that the German government is behind the Jewish people. “I stand with the Jewish community in Germany today,” he said during his visit. “I say loud and clear, ‘Whoever attacks Jewish centers or Jewish people is attacking Germany.’ ”
He added that “the cabinet of the government has now passed a draft of a new law to be submitted to parliament—that traveling to a terrorist camp with a goal to participate in the camp is against the law in Germany.”
At the meeting’s conclusion, Teichtal said “the solidarity visit served as a clear expression of support, which strengthens and encourages the Jewish community in Germany.”
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