Jewish groups condemned anti-Semitic comments made on Facebook by a Greek politician from the main opposition party who claimed that by lighting candles in a synagogue last year, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras was preparing ‘’a new Jewish victory over Greece.’’
The comments came to light this week as Theodoros Karypidis, from the radical left Syriza party, was selected at the weekend as candidate for the post of regional governor of Western Macedonia for the May elections. Karypidis is said to be a sympathiser of Golden Dawn, the Greek extreme-right and anti-Semitic party.
On his Facebook page, Karypidis alleged that NERIT, an acronm for the country's new state broadcaster, is derived from the Hebrew word for candle, “ner,” which he linked to the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, which commemorates the struggle of the Maccabees against the Greeks.
“Samaras is lighting the candles in the seven branched candelabra of the Jews and lighting Greece on fire after his visit to the Thessaloniki Synagogue,” Karypidis wrote, adding that “he is organizing a new Hanukkah against the Greeks.”
The synagogue visit to which he referred was an appearance the Greek Prime Minister Samaras made with the World Jewish Congress and Greek Jewish leaders at Thessaloniki’s historic Monastiriotes Synagogue in March 2013, at a ceremony commemorating the 1943 deportation of 50,000 of the city’s Jews to the Nazi death camps. It was the first such visit a Greek Prime Minister had made in the last 100 years.
According to the Greek media, Syriza’s political secretariat was due to meet on Thursday amid calls for the party to re-examine the Karypidis’ candidacy.
‘’Syriza should withdraw the candidacy of Theodoros Karypidis for governor of Western Macedonia because his hateful anti-Semitic conspiracy theories can have no place in public discourse in the world’s oldest democracy,” said World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder.
“We join Greece’s Jewish communities in calling for Karypidis’s removal from the Syriza list and from the party. Unfortunately, anti-Semitic outbursts such as this are not the reserve of extreme-right parties.”
In a statement, KIS, the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece said: “We hope that the leadership of Syriza, which is a significant democratic party, will take all the necessary measures so that those who express views that incite racial hatred, intolerance, and anti-Semitism, remain on the margins of Greek society. It is our common duty to safeguard the principles of democracy, freedom and religious tolerance in the 2014 Greece, against those who serve the forces of darkness and anti-Semitic stereotypes. We hope that the party of Syriza will continue to strictly follow the policy against racism and anti-Semitism which is adopted by all democratic parties in Greece and in Europe.”
David Harris, Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee said he was "appalled by the anti-Semitic statements".
"Vile, outrageous expressions of anti-Semitism in Greece are coming not only from Golden Dawn on the far right but also, as Theodoros Karypidis's Facebook post illustrates, from the far left," he added