Speech at the ceremony to mark the signing of the town twinning agreement with Kiryat Bialik on 26 October 2022
Shalom Eli Dukorski,
shalom dear guests from Kiryat Bialik,
Dear members of the German Bundestag, the Saxon State Parliament and the Chemnitz City Council,
Dear Dr Seifert, dear Peter,
Dear Dr Feist
Dear Dr Röcher
Dear members of the Jewish community
Ladies and gentlemen,
dear guests,
shalom.
Welcome to Chemnitz!
I am delighted to be able to welcome you all here today on this happy occasion. I can say without exaggeration that today's signing of this town twinning agreement is a very special moment for which we are grateful.
Grateful for the opportunities that are given to us with the town twinning, for the friendship, for the attention, for the attention that we Chemnitz residents receive around the world.
23 years after we sealed our eleventh partnership with the Chinese city of Taiyuan, we are now entering our twelfth.
Daring to think outside the box; being open to new things - that is what characterises us as a democratic and free society.
Anyone who dares to do this and adopts new perspectives, who gets to know new cultures, will realise that friendships and mutual interest are good for us! They allow us to grow.
That is why Chemnitz maintains partnerships with eleven cities around the world, from North America to Europe, from Africa to Asia, with exchanges on very different levels:
Whether between sports clubs that compete against each other in tournaments, choirs that make music together, schools whose children visit each other or fire brigades that benefit from the experience of each other's comrades.
It is always the people who bring town twinning to life. Without them, none of our eleven partnerships to date would have existed for so many years.
The first twinning agreement between Chemnitz - then Karl-Marx-Stadt - and Tampere in Finland was signed in October 1961. And this friendship was characterised by one special feature right from the start:
Europe was divided into two blocs as a result of the Second World War and the Cold War, with all its manifestations, made the development of interstate relations on our continent considerably more difficult - if it allowed them at all.
Accordingly, international contacts at municipal level were the exception rather than the rule. It was not until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the political upheavals in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc that transnational cooperation between individual cities became more important.
By 1999, we had entered into a total of eleven town twinning agreements. Eleven friendships that still exist today. Eleven connections all over the world that bring Chemnitz closer. Closer to other cultures, closer to other religions, closer to other people.
Today, we can look back with pride on six decades in which relations between our city and its twin cities have been successfully developed. Six decades in which we have learnt and continue to learn a great deal from each other, for example in matters of business, sport and culture, but also in matters of politics and society.
Now it is time to open a new chapter in our city's history. After 23 years, we would like to officially enter into a new town twinning partnership. A partnership that will be a great enrichment for both cities!
I am delighted that we will also be closely twinned with Kiryat Bialik in the future and would like to extend a special welcome to our guests from Israel on this festive occasion:
- The Mayor of Kiryat Bialik - Eli Dukorski
- The Deputy Mayor of the City of Kiryat Bialik - Dr Revital Svirsky
- And the members of the city council Mrs Anat Warmbrand
- And Mr Tzach Nachmani
A warm welcome to Chemnitz to all of you!
[Salutation],
Today we are going to sign the official twinning agreement, the solemn expression of the common wish of both cities, which the city councils of Kirjat Bialik decided in July and of Chemnitz in September.
However, this agreement is not a starting signal for the beginning of our partnership, but an important milestone on the path that we have already travelled together and that we want to continue. It forms the administrative framework for our cooperation, which has been brought to life by the activities of people, associations, institutions and companies for some time now.
And that is precisely what is special about this town twinning: the relationship that we are formally celebrating today was not initiated by the administrations, but by committed citizens of both towns. Some of them are here today.
The fact that relations between Chemnitz and the Israeli city of Kiryat Bialik have existed since 2009 is thanks to Dr Rafael Wertheim, the former mayor, who was in charge of the city's affairs from 2003 to 2008 and then came to Chemnitz as a scientist at the Fraunhofer Institute. It was supposed to be six months as a deputy, but it turned into many years.
When he was asked 13 years ago whether there were any official contacts between Chemnitz and Israeli cities, the answer was negative.
For Dr Wertheim, his wife Hannah and Dr Ruth Röcher from the Jewish community, this was the impetus to take action.
Together they intensified their contacts, built bridges between the two cities, and cultivated and improved the relationship between Israel and Chemnitz.
This began with Israeli artists presenting their work in Chemnitz. During one of these visits, Saxon memorabilia also changed hands, with a Wanderer typewriter finding its way into the Kirjat Bialik museum of local history.
In Chemnitz, the Israeli partnership met positive-minded fellow campaigners. Over the years, these have included Renate Aris, Egmont Elschner and Frank Blumstein, who are here today on behalf of the Days of Jewish Culture.
They, the organisers, have not only regularly provided the people of Chemnitz with a high-quality and varied cultural programme for years. They have also been organising the exchange between Kiryat Bialik and our city for years, establishing new networks and thus advancing our relations.
Mind you, without an official signature under a certificate for the partnership.
In 2014, the cooperation between our two cities was then discussed for the first time in Kiryat Bialik's city council. Dr Wertheim reported on all the activities that had already taken place:
From the Days of Jewish Culture as well as the activities of the German-Israeli Society in Chemnitz around Dorothee Lücke and Dorothee Morgenstern. And, of course, from the active Jewish community.
As a result, interest in Chemnitz also grew at an official level and soon the first delegation from Kiryat Bialik travelled to our city to see the active life described here.
Dr Svirsky came to Chemnitz for the first time in 2017 to meet the people who had already made a great contribution to the relationship with Kiryat Bialik.
Eli Dukorski also visited Chemnitz in 2018 together with a group of music students for the Days of Jewish Culture. This group stayed for a week and played music together with music students from Chemnitz.
And this interest was by no means one-sided, quite the opposite! Over the years, Frank Blumstein from the FUER CHEMNITZ citizens' association, music students from Chemnitz and even students and academics have visited Kirjat Bialik.
And one thing is certain:
Without your dedicated commitment, dear guests, and that of your many fellow campaigners who cannot be with us today, this partnership agreement would most likely never have been signed.
Without you, Chemnitz would have been deprived of many wonderful experiences and the opportunities inherent in this partnership.
In November 2019, the Chemnitz City Council commissioned the administration to draw up a proposal for a partnership with a city in Israel on the initiative of several political groups. Due to the many existing connections between our two cities, a partnership between Kiryat Bialik and Chemnitz seemed an obvious choice.
Finally, in May of this year, a Chemnitz delegation travelled to Kiryat Bialik to get to know the city better and to explore the possibility of more intensive cooperation.
[Salutation],
I was deeply impressed by this trip.
I experienced a city whose German roots are visible, as it was founded by German immigrants in 1934. This history can still be traced today in Haus Katz.
In Kiryat Bialik, I encountered an extremely friendly, cheerful population in a city that promotes art and culture and is well ahead of us in terms of construction, infrastructure and IT projects.
Israel is a country characterised by an eventful and moving history and at the same time a country that looks to the future. And this also applies to the city of Kiryat Bialik itself.
On our trip, we also discovered some similarities between our two cities:
Here, as there, there are many movers and shakers - people who shape their city themselves. And just like us, in the future European Capital of Culture 2025, people in Kiryat Bialik, the city named after the great Hebrew national poet Chaim Nachman Bialik, love culture.
And I am sure that much more will be created in the coming years that will unite us:
In addition to the area of culture already mentioned, we will increasingly focus on economic and sustainability issues and look for opportunities for our companies to invest in each other's regions.
To this end, we organised the German-Israeli SME Day in Chemnitz for the first time this year, a format that we intend to continue in the coming year. In addition, the German-Israeli Business Association has chosen Chemnitz as one of six "Israel Innovation Hubs".
We also want to work together more closely in the areas of youth and education.
Children and young people often have similar concerns. Regardless of which religion you belong to or in which country you grow up - growing up has its own special challenges. A regular exchange is therefore an important step towards understanding and promoting long-term relationships between the people of our cities.
Sporting exchanges should also play an important role in our relations. For example, the Niners basketball players, who happen to play in Israel today, are planning a youth exchange next year.
[Salutation],
Jewish citizens have played a decisive role in shaping the history of Chemnitz. Names such as Richard Tauber and Stefan Heym, to name just two of them, have become famous far beyond our city limits.
We are therefore all the more pleased that Jewish life and Jewish culture are once again firmly anchored in our city after the cruel caesura of the National Socialist reign of terror and that we will continue the history of Jewish life in our city in 2025 as European Capital of Culture together with a partner city in Israel.
Because one thing is particularly important to me and here I know I agree with our Israeli guests:
Germany has a very special responsibility towards the Israeli people based on its history. This realisation is our immovable compass of values, which must shape our parliamentary democracy as well as our daily lives.
However, partnerships such as ours are not only created in the knowledge of our own history, but above all with a view to the future. For present and future generations who seek and find their own paths, always focussing on what we have in common, what unites us.
Because recognising this unity, preserving it and nurturing it is a prerequisite for peaceful coexistence in the world. This is being made painfully clear to us again at the moment.
And so I would like to encourage all of you, and especially the schools, associations and initiatives in our two cities, to seek regular dialogue.
Let us get to know and understand each other even better.
Let us work together to make this partnership what it should be in the long term: a living expression of mutual respect, appreciation and friendly co-operation.
Thank you very much!
(The spoken word prevails)