The planned interreligious peace prayer under the patronage of Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) will not take place; the event announced for Monday evening has been canceled. The mayor announced this on Monday. “It was a prerequisite for accepting my patronage that a representative of the Jewish religious community also said a prayer. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. I regret that, but I also understand it. The time is obviously not right at the moment and to enable a common prayer for peace for Munich.”
He considered the idea of an interreligious peace prayer to be worth supporting, especially in this highly emotional time, which can also be felt in Munich’s urban society.
The “Left Alliance Against Anti-Semitism” had previously sharply criticized the planned peace prayer. The alliance was particularly bothered by the participation of the Muslim Council. It accuses him of being close to Islamist groups such as Ditib, Milli Görüs and the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Many Muslims and other people” in the city are now “shocked” and “disappointed” by the cancellation, said the Penzberg imam Benjamin Idriz, chairman of the Munich Forum for Islam association, who initiated the event with other imams in the city. The allegations against the Muslim Council, of which he is not a member, are not new. Its chairman Sokol Lamaj was present at the preliminary meeting with the mayor. “The mayor could have said if he didn’t want the Muslim Council to take part, which was once founded as a link between Muslims and urban society.”
At least in 2018, according to the city of Munich, the association also included mosque associations with connections to the German Muslim Society (DMG), which, according to the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, “is known as a branch of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.” According to the city’s information at the time, the Muslim Council Munich itself was not an object of observation by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
One by one, several planned speakers canceled on Sunday
The President of the German-Israeli Society, the Green Party politician Volker Beck, had also called for the cancellation of the prayer for peace in the Middle East after a report in the “Jüdische Allgemeine” on the connections between the DMG and the Muslim Council. “In itself it is a nice thought when Muslims, Christians and Jews pray together for peace,” said Beck. “I consider the peace prayer in this constellation to be an event that only serves to court and protect Hamas-trivializing and Islamist positions.”
Beck now welcomed the rejection, but was irritated by Reiter’s reasons. “Yesterday, a church representative contacted us first and said that they were thinking about a cancellation. Now Mr. Reiter is saying that the withdrawal of a Jewish representative was the reason for the cancellation. In doing so, he is shifting the responsibility onto the Jewish community .” The city failed to select credible Muslim actors for the peace prayer. The Jewish Community of Munich itself has not yet publicly declared itself.
Actually, a rabbi from the Israelite Community should have said prayers alongside Idriz at the event on Marienplatz. The Protestant regional bishop Christian Kopp and the Catholic Munich cathedral priest Monsignor Klaus Peter Franzl should also take part. Idriz said on Monday that Protestant and Jewish representatives canceled their attendance late on Sunday evening due to “schedule difficulties”. On Monday at ten o’clock the mayor announced that he would not be taking part either because the Jewish community had canceled. The Muslim Council was not an issue.
The Munich Muslims wanted to send “a sign of peace,” said Idriz. “The fact that this should not be possible in Munich remains a very bitter experience, and not just for Muslims.”