In televised remarks, a Greek Orthodox bishop has recently blamed the country’s financial problems on a conspiracy of Jewish bankers and claimed that the Holocaust was orchestrated by Zionists.
The anti-Semitic remarks were made by the Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus during a recent interview on in a morning show on Greece's most popular TV channel. The 54 year old bishop “said that there is a conspiracy to enslave Greece and Christian Orthodoxy. He also accused international Zionism of trying to destroy the family unit by promoting one-parent families and same-sex marriages.”
According to media reports, when the bishop was then asked, “Why do you disagree with Hitler’s policies? If they are doing all this, wasn’t he right in burning them?” he replied: “Adolf Hitler was an instrument of world Zionism and was financed from the renowned Rothschild family with the sole purpose of convincing the Jews to leave the shores of Europe and go to Israel to establish the new Empire.” He added that Jewish bankers like “Rockefeller, Rothschild and Soros control the international banking system that controls globalization.”
Open Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Greece, and incidents intensified over the past year, a trend connected to the severe economic crisis faced by the country. In such circumstances, the age-old habit of blaming the Jews combines with the stereotype of "Jewish Bankers" and finds a willing reception. Local church leaders have not been energetic in condemning anti-Semitic incidents, perhaps happy to deflect attention from the role of prominent members of the Greek Church in the financial meltdown and the ensuing harsh austerity measures now facing the country.
Earlier this year, the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS) has warned of growing anti-Semitism in Greece. This warning came after a violent attack against the Jewish cemetery of Salonika, in northern Greece and after the Holocaust Monument on the island of Rhodes was desecrated. The unidentified vandals attempted to smash the Magen David on the granite facade of the Rhodes monument, which was damaged and cracked.
The Jewish community in Greece was devastated in the Holocaust, and 4 out of every 5 Jewish citizens were killed during WW2. Some 65,000 Greek-Jewish men, women and children were sent to Auschwitz between 1941 and 1944. Today, Jewish cemeteries and holocaust monuments are the most tangible signs of the vanished community, and are the focus of anti-Semitic outbursts.
In other recent incidents, Greek police arrested in May 2010 three Greek neo-Nazi activists on suspicion of writing Nazi slogans on the walls of a Jewish cemetery in Greece’s second-largest city Thessaloniki (Salonika). The trio, including a 17-year-old minor, were also suspected of having set gasoline alight on tombs in the cemetery.
In March, Crete's only synagogue was set on fire. In January, four people—including an American of Greek origin and two Britons—were charged with an arson attack on the historic Etz Chaim synagogue on the Greek island of Crete.
