Of course they’re not. In fact, they’re just as Greek as anyone else in the country and have been an inexorable component of Greek history for more than 2,000 years.
Why then when a Jewish cemetery in Greece is desecrated, or when a Holocaust monument in the country is defaced– is a statement released by the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs?
Don’t get me wrong– the MFA statement condemning the recent Larissa vandalism was powerful and a strong rebuke of the plague of anti-Semitism that has taken root in Greece for quite some time now.
But since when is anti-Semitism in Greece a “foreign” affair?
The dead people whose remains lie in that cemetery in Larissa whose walls were defaced this past week were Greeks.
The Holocaust victims who are memorialized on the spray-painted monument in the town’s center were Greek Holocaust victims.
So I have to ask the same question again to those who manage the Greek government’s communication strategy.
Is anti-Semitism in Greece a foreign affair?
Are Greece’s Jews foreigners?
Why then is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the official communicator of condemnation when something like this happens against Greece’s Jewish community?
Shouldn’t these messages of condemnation reach the citizenry of the country and not only the international community?
Why isn’t this statement coming from a relevant ministry which handles the internal affairs of the citizenry, or the protection of the country’s people?
I checked the press announcements and Tweets from the Ministries of the Interior and the Ministry of Civil Protection and found nothing. I also checked the Greek police communications platforms and found nothing.
Call me cynical but I didn’t bother checking what should be the most logical condemner of anti-Semitism in Greece: the Church, because although its hierarchs should be the ones really condemning such atrocious acts, such condemnations rarely come.
Editor’s note: Incidentally, the featured photo is a column dating from the 1st century AD that was found in an archaeological dig in Larissa, with a menorah etched into the marble.
