Members of the Beitar youth movement on Thursday conducted their annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony outside the German Embassy in Tel Aviv – an activity, the group said, was more relevant than ever this year, given the fascination among some Israelis and the media of “the good life” in Berlin.
The ceremony was led by Neria Meir, head of the Beitar World Movement, during the 10 AM sounding of the siren in Israel, in which Israelis contemplate the loss of the six million. Beitar has held this remembrance ceremony at the same spot for decades, and to this day Beitar has an official boycott of Germany; the organization does not use German-made products, and has never sent its members to be part of youth delegations to Germany.
In recent months, heavy media coverage was given to a Facebook page protesting high prices in the country. The page started by an ex-IDF soldier who had gone to live in Berlin, claiming that it was the price of “Milky,” a chocolate and whipped cream treat, that had prompted him to leave the country.
In a Facebook posting, the anonymous individual, who claimed to be an IDF combat veteran, said that he decided to look abroad “when I picked up a four-pack of Milky and put it down, thinking that I couldn't afford to buy it for my kids.” Other Israelis living in Berlin were interviewed by Channels 1, 2, and 10 – and all claimed that prices on everything were “better” in Berlin. Food, housing, clothing, and other prices were lower, and wages were higher, said most of the interviewees.
Speaking at the event, Meir said that “at a time Israelis are flooding Berlin, the task of our generation is not to forget the evil that happened there. The evil of the Holocaust had a face, and that face was German. We are commanded in the Bible to 'remember what the evil Amalek did to you,' and this commandment applies to our generation as well; we must hate evil and not deny its existence. If we do not properly remember the evil of the Nazis, we will be unable to cope with modern day anti-Semitism,” he added.