Hundreds of people joined Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit and an international rabbinical delegation to celebrate 15 years of Chabad-Lubavitch activities in the German capital.

The star-studded gala also included the participation of Israeli Ambassador Yacov Hadas-Handelsman and Berlin Jewish community leader Gideon Joffe. Rabbinical leaders who flew in for the occasion included Rabbi Yochanan Gurary, chief rabbi of the Israeli city of Holon; Rabbi Shlomo Tiechtel, father of the Berlin Rohr Chabad Center’s director, Rabbi Yehuda Tiechtel; Rabbi Yitzchok Tiechtel, director of Chabad of Nashville, Tenn.; Chabad-Lubavitch of Krakow, Poland, director Rabbi Eliezer Gurary; Rabbi Shmuel Gurary, director of the Chabad Israeli Center of Baltimore, Md.,; and Rabbi Chaim Hillel Azimov of North Cyprus. They joined their German counterparts: Rabbis Shlomo Bistritzky of Hamburg; Shneor Havlin of Dresden; Schneur Zalman Trebnik of Ulm; and Nachum Presman of Potsdam.

According to participants, the high point of the evening came when the mayor joined in the lively Chasidic dancing that followed a performance by Jewish singer Avraham Fried.

In his speech, the mayor stressed the importance of Chabad’s activities in the city and the tremendous revolution had taken place in the city since the arrival of Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries in the late 1990s. He concluded his speech with good wishes for Rabbi Yehuda Teichtel’s and his colleagues throughout the capital.