Greek newspaper accused of Anti-Semitism

Greek daily Avriani bore a headline on November 4, 2008 heralding the coming victory of Barack Obama’s in the US presidential race by saying "The anticipated victory of Obama in the U.S. elections signals THE END OF JEWISH DOMINATION. Everything changes in the USA and we hope that it will be more democratic and humane.”

The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, reacted saying that “anti-Semitism remains alive in Greece today" and that political local leaders need to take a clear stand against hate. “It is imperative that elected officials and civil society leaders in Greece speak out forcefully against anti-Semitism.”

Foxman, the outspoken firebrand against anti-Semitism in the US and the world, said “While hailing a new era for the United States, the editors of Avriani have themselves taken a backward leap to a time in the not-so-distant past when Europeans shamelessly wore anti-Semitism on their sleeves, and when public expressions of hate for Jews were the norm.”

He added, “Conspiracy theories of Jewish control have a long and sordid history, and have no place in a newspaper that serves as a source for news and analysis.”

Avriani is a tabloid that frequently runs lurid stories and conspiracy theories, but some observers in Greece that it is giving voice to anti-Semitic sentiments held by the extreme left and right, as well as some sectors of the Greek Orthodox hierarchy. Greek newspapers are often awash with unfounded rumours, innunendo, and inaccuracies. For instance, in the 1980s, the Greek press was fascinated with the false story that there was a underwater submarine base operated by the United States near Athens in addition to the Hellenikon NATO airbase and Nea Makri naval base.

Among the accusations lain by Avriani are that “Obama has been funded by financial centers which depend on huge Arab capital and the influence of the Jewish lobby on his staff.” In addition, Avriani declared that a cabal of neo-conservatives in the Bush Administration were on orders from the “Jewish lobby”, who were also allegedly the puppetmasters of John McCain and Sarah Palin. Avriani is one of Greece’s top 10 newspapers, and is considered to have a populist cast. No stranger to conspiracy theories, Avriani once theorized that Jews were the cause of forest fires in the 1980s.

Jews as a community have been present since at least the time of Aristotle and once spoke a variant of Greek, much as Yiddish is a variant of German. The community of these Hellenized Jews or Romaniotes were notable for centuries in the northern city of Ioannina; they were extinguished under orders of Germany’s National Socialist government during the Second World War. Sephardic Jews, expelled by Spain in 1492, were invited to Greece by the Ottomon Empire which then ruled the area. Many of these settled in the city of Thessaloniki (where St. Paul preached to the Thessalonians) where they flourished for centuries until also succumbing to the onslaught of Nazism and local anti-Semites.

However, the 275 Jews of the island of Zakynthos (which Italians call Zante) were saved by the local Greek Orthodox bishop and the mayor during the Holocaust. When Nazis demanded a list of all the Jews residing on the island, the cleric and the mayor submitted their own names. Greeks then hid every Jew residing on the island from Nazi wrath.