JTA, 7.1.2019: Athens, In a small, nondescript classroom in Greece’s capital city, 10 Jewish eighth-graders study a biblical text about Jacob and Esau under the guidance of Rivkah Carl, a Jewish teacher from Teaneck, New Jersey.

The students chatter loudly in Greek among themselves, though the language of instruction is English. In an adjacent classroom, nine kids — each wearing headphones and sitting in front of computer monitors — listen as their Israeli instructor teaches them Hebrew.

But this is no Jewish school. In Athens’ dwindling Jewish community, now at about 3,000 members, there simply aren’t enough children to support a Jewish middle or high school.

So community leaders came up with a unique solution: a special Jewish track at the prestigious American College of Greece, a private school founded by Christian missionaries in 1875 with a middle school and high school division called the Pierce School.

The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece unequivocally condemns this hideous attack and it expresses the feelings of the Greek Jews in wishing to the injured a speedy and full recovery and that they return to their families the soonest.

We must not allow intolerance, fanaticism and terrorism to become part of our everyday life, spreading fear and targeting even the sacred houses of prayer. We all have to work together in order to safeguard the human values of love, solidarity and respect, from those who seek to enforce the terror of hatred and violence.

Athens, December 27, 2018