An Israeli expat’s Facebook boast that a chocolate dessert costs less in Berlin than in Tel Aviv has triggered outrage in his homeland.<br /><br />There, high prices are a sensitive subject – as is Germany, given its Nazi past.<br /><br />The social media stir over the cut-price ‘milky’ pudding – as it is known in Israel – has sparked a campaign for more Israelis to move to Berlin.<br /><br />“When I saw it, it seemed like a joke,” said Eran Levy, 46, an Israeli already settled in the German capital. <br /><br />“I thought that someone just had some kind of an interest, maybe financial interest, in order to bring as many people here, for whatever reason it is. Since then I also read that this website had got many likes and lists of people willing to move.”<br /><br />They were hardly the mass protests of three years ago against the cost of living in Israel but dozens drawn by the so-called ‘Milky Protest’ gathered in Tel Aviv on Tuesday night to press for Israelis to move abroad.<br /><br />“You can save money in Berlin which is a little bit difficult here. Not a little bit difficult, very difficult!” said protester and would-be emigrant Daniel Hershkovitz.<br /><br />And with “more artistic platforms” and “more freedom of speech”, he added: “all these factors definitely make me think about emigrating from this country”.<br /><br />But for the Jewish people, Berlin is no ordinary destination with the history of the Holocaust looming large in many Israeli minds – not least for survivors, some of whom still refuse to have anything to do with Germany.
