Athens Mayor Signs Declaration Against Anti-Semitism
Image by Wikipedia
ATHENS, Greece (JTA) — The mayor of Athens signed a declaration against anti-Semitism, joining 60 other European mayors to have inked the American Jewish Committee’s initiative.
“I chose to sign because it is my conviction that the first value in civilized society is human dignity,” said Mayor Giorgos Kaminis at a ceremony with a nine-member visiting AJC delegation in the Greek capital.
Along with the European mayors, the AJC’s Mayors United Against Anti-Semitism campaign has garnered signatures from over 300 U.S. mayors.
Athens has seen several anti-Semitic incidents in the last year, including the vandalism of the city’s Jewish cemetery and Holocaust memorials.
The visiting AJC delegation also met with senior Greek government officials. Also during the trip, the AJC’s executive director, David Harris, was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Piraeus.
A recent Anti-Defamation League survey showed that Greece has Europe’s highest rate of anti-Semitic attitudes, with 69 percent of Greeks espousing anti-Semitic views. That is nearly twice the rate of the next highest country, France, with 37 percent.
A message from our Publisher & CEO 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.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
