Separation of church and state is not exactly at the top of Germany’s agenda. At the top of Thursday’s arts section in the New York Times, Michael Kimmelman raved over Radio Muezzin, a play staged in Berlin and subsidized by the German federal government and the Berlin mayor’s office:

Berlin alone is home to 220,000 Muslims, but the first mosque in the former Communist half of the city opened just last year, to far-right protests. Protests have greeted the building of mosques all across Germany, and the one now under way in Cologne has become a frequent lightning rod. No calls to prayers are permitted on the streets here or in many countries across Western Europe, and some opportunistic European festival directors, contemplating taking on this play, have reportedly considered asking the muezzins to publicly chant the azan, as the call to prayer is known, precisely to provoke a scandal and to generate headlines.
Even so, an abiding culture of tolerance and civility ranks high among this city’s traits, and the applause from the audience the other night was long and heartfelt. Berliners were clearly charmed.