Thursday, January 29, 2015

Op-Ed: What can Jews in Greece and abroad expect?


Via Abravanel (h/t Glykosymoritis):
Syriza – and his predecessor Synaspismos – were consistently the least antisemitic political party in Greece. This dubious praise makes sense if one takes into account that Greece is the most antisemitic country in Europe, if not in the whole non-muslim world. Although after WW2 antisemitism never took the violent forms that plagued other countries like France, hate speech is rampant, omnipresent and totally unopposed. While seldomly having faced physical violence, Jews are forced into complete invisibility to avoid harassment and psychologically coerced into denying that what they experience is antisemitism. Still Syriza was the only party which consistently issued declarations against the periodical vandalisms of Jewish buildings, albeit weak ones. It also consistently gave homage to the Shoah and publicly opposed neo-nazis. Plus it always advocated the separation between State and the Orthodox Church which plays a major role in maintaining religious antisemitism. On the other hand Syriza heavily invested in a virulent anti-Israel retoric which in Greece regularly employs antisemitic tropes and often reverses into straightforward antisemitism against Greek who happen to profess the Jewish faith.

More at Abravanel's blog.

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