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Wednesday, 25 July 2018 14:34 |
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The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece joins the national mourning for the fires that burnt to the ground the areas of Marathon and Rafina in the region of Attica and expresses the deepest grief and the all hearted solidarity of the Greek Jewry to the relatives of the victims and to the wounded.
We hope that this unspeakable tragedy that left behind so many losses and uncountable damages, comes to an end and that the suffering people are healthy and strong to cope with this devastating disaster.
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) in its announcement of July 25, 2018, stated: “The European Jewish Congress stands in solidarity with Greece following the devastating wildfires that have raged across the Attica region and have tragically taken the lives of more than 70 people. On behalf of 42 national Jewish communities in Europe, we mourn this tragic loss of life and extend our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims. Our prayers and thoughts are with the Greek people and we send our encouragement to those bravely engaged in search and rescue efforts”.
The CEO of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), David Harris, through a twitter post, stated: “AJC is supporting the relief efforts to help Greece. I urge others to do the same. So many lives have been lost due to fires. So many families are suffering. So many homes have been destroyed. Let’s do what we can to assist our Greek friends”.
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Thursday, 12 July 2018 11:55 |
“You're stepping on sacred ground.
You're stepping on what is left of the largest necropolis of the East.
You're stepping on the place where the Jews of Thessaloniki were buried for centuries.
Strong spirits and kind souls of the most vibrant community of the Mediterranean, found here their final resting place.
Their graves stretched up high on the hills.
Until 1943 when the forces of evil crushed all human substance; but people were not enough. They wanted to eradicate the memory too.
And as they were sending the living to their death, they were shattering the tombs of the dead and scattering their bones.
Those buried here died for a second time”.
[Excerpt from the inscription on the Monument]
Yesterday, July 10, 2018, vandals desecrated with paint the Jewish Monument in the campus of the Aristotle’s University of Thessaloniki, in the Observatory Park. They are disturbed even by the above words inscribed next to the remnants of the tombstones that survived the rage of the Nazis and their local collaborators. They have no moral scruples. They respect neither the living nor the dead.
The University was built upon the shattered tombs and the scattered bones of our forefathers of Thessaloniki, while the Jews of Thessaloniki where confined into ghettos pending deportation. It took 72 years for the city to assume responsibility and pay tribute to the memory of the Jewish necropolis with the erection of this monument in 2014. Today, the memory of the Jews of Thessaloniki, along with the history and the culture of the city, are struck once more, by the preachers of hatred.
There remain no other words to describe the sorrow of the Greek Jews: Shame – Shame – Shame.
Athens July 11, 2018
Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece
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Friday, 29 June 2018 10:16 |
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Vandals defaced the Holocaust Monument in Thessaloniki with red paint in the night of Wednesday June 27, 2018. According to authorities and press reports, perpetrators may have been participants in a rally held earlier that day outside the Macedonia-Thrace Ministry to protest the name deal signed between Athens and Skopje.
The President of the Hellenic Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos, in a telephone conversation with David Saltiel, the President of KIS and the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, condemned the attack and expressed his firm opposition to any form of antisemitism. Mr Pavlopoulos confirmed also his participation in the March of the Living 2019.
The hideous attack was immediately condemned also by the Government, the political parties, the local Prefecture of Central Macedonia, the Municipality of Thessaloniki and many politicians. The Justice system was mobilized through the head prosecutor of Thessaloniki who ordered a preliminary investigation into the vandalism. The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS), and the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki issued press announcements.
The announcement of KIS stresses the following:
“The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece expresses the profound sorrow, the intense concern, and the outrage of the Greek Jews for the latest vandal attack against the Holocaust Monument of Thessaloniki that occurred in the night of June 27, 2018, for the third time during the last seven months.
The image of the Monument covered in red paint clearly indicates the intent of the vandals to paint in blood -once more- the Jews of Thessaloniki, a city that saw 50.000 of its Jewish citizens deported and murdered by the Nazis in the German extermination camps.
The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece calls upon the State and the social institutions to firmly condemn the desecration of the Holocaust memory, of the history of Thessaloniki and of the whole Greece. In the same time, the Authorities need to bring to Justice the seekers of darkness that aim at discrediting in the most deplorable way the image of the city.
The Monument will not lose its meaning and value: To remind to visitors the barbarity that led to the death of the Jews of Thessaloniki, only because they were Jewish, and alert society that absolute evil may happen again if we do not fortify the principals of our democracy and our humanism”.
Athens, 28 June 2018
Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece
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Friday, 11 May 2018 09:10 |
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The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece strongly condemns the new attack launched against the Jews by religious official Ahmet Mete.
Recent publications, claim that, at a speech of his at the Kentavros Mosque in Xanthi, (a city in North-Eastern Greece) the self-proclaimed Mufti Ahmet Mete stated the following: "I accused the Jews of being murderers of infants because they slaughtered infants... Look; I would even accuse my father if he had also killed infants. How can anyone kill an infant, a defenseless infant? If they came and killed, robbed and did unacceptable things to our children, would we say nothing? Religion upholds that, as a Muslim, if someone among you sees an evil action, let him change it with his hand; if he cannot, then with his tongue; and if he cannot, then hate him with his heart".
On 26th April 2018, Ahmed Mete, was sentenced to 8 months imprisonment, a redeemable sentence, for saying that Hitler was right to turn the Jews into soap. But he continues the preaching of hatred.
We repeat that a representative of a religious minority, the Muslim minority, is becoming a preacher of hatred rather than being a preacher of religious peace, tolerance and reconciliation. He does not have the right to do so. He may not feel obliged to teach reconciliation among people, but he certainly has no right to preach hatred. It is known that anti-Semitism, which extends to the glorification of Nazism and Hitler and the accusation of Jews being slaughterers of children, thrives in Islamist regimes, but is not tolerated in a Democracy such as Greek democracy.
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The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece 
