JERUSALEM (JTA) — The mayor of an Israeli city said he had no plans to establish a sister-city relationship with Dachau, despite recent rumors.
Moshe Sinai of Rosh Ha’ayin told the Ha’aretz daily that the two cities had discussed holding joint educational tours of Israeli and German students at the site of the Dachau concentration camp.
"They took a nice educational initiative and portrayed me as an enemy of the state," Sinai said. "I find it hard to understand what is so bad about a group of Israeli teens visiting Dachau."
Sinai visited the German city last summer, where the initiative was discussed.
"As Jews, we can’t turn our backs on the German nation that speaks from a place of deep regret when it asks us to build a bridge through the kids in order to learn the lessons of the Holocaust," he told Ha’aretz.
Rosh Ha’ayin, a city of 38,600 in central Israel, already has sister-city relationships in China, France and the United States.
