Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

European Jewish Congress Award’s Greece’s PM for Ban on Neo-Nazis

The European Jewish Congress presented Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras with an award for his government’s support of a ban on the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party.

The award presented to Samaras Monday during a meeting in Athens of the EJC executive committee noted Greece’s “stand against the Golden Dawn party, who want to use and abuse democracy for their hateful and racist agenda,” the EJC wrote in a statement.

In September, Samaras said at a reception held in his honor in New York by the American Jewish Committee that he would try to eliminate the party. That month, Greek officials said they would outlaw the group following the slaying of Pavlos Fyssas, a prominent anti-fascist musician, allegedly at the hands of a man with ties to Golden Dawn.

“We ask that this experience and leadership be used as an example and a model for the rest of Europe when Greece assumes the rotating EU presidency in January,” said EJC President Moshe Kantor.

Golden Dawn, once a fringe group known for Hitler salutes and Holocaust denial, won 7 percent of the vote in the 2012 national elections.

Polls this fall indicated that Golden Dawn had a 15 percent approval rating among Greek voters.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.