Nearly 70 years later, Athens, one of the last European capitals to commemorate those who perished at the hands of Nazi forces, finally has a Holocaust memorial.
But since its dedication in May, synagogues have been targeted, Jewish cemeteries desecrated, Holocaust monuments elsewhere in Greece vandalized and the Jewish Museum of Greece, in the capital, defaced with swastikas. What’s more, an alarming chunk of Athenians in November supported the election of a neo-Nazi candidate to the capital’s city council.
When are we going to learn?
Under the surface of this urbane, cultured, proud and wonderful people, older currents run – dating back to the days of the battles between Communists and Monarchists, the fight for independence, the fight against the Axis powers, the oppressive rule of the Colonels, and centuries of domination by foreigners of this ancient land. Passions on different sides run high and it does not take much for them to surface to the fear and shame of other Greeks.
How shameful.. Greeks are nearly all likely to say they are baptized “Orthodox Christians”. As such they share the misery of life under the Ottomans with Jews for centuries and the persecutions of those years. They also endure the desecration of their ancestral tombs in Istanbul and other parts of Asia Minor. How can anyone who is a victim of persecution do the same to others? Only if the baptism is
forgotten.
Well, one mark of antisemitism are bans on kosher foods and circumcision. So not to be outdone I give you San Francisco:
[blockquote](CNN) — In the California city that banned Happy Meal toys,outlawed sitting on sidewalks during daylight hours and fined residents for not sorting garbage into recycling, compost and trash, Lloyd Schofield wants to add a new law to the books in San Francisco: A ban on all male circumcisions.
Those who violate the ban could be jailed (not more than one year) or fined (not more than $1,000), under his proposal. Circumcisions even for religious reasons would not be allowed. At this point, Schofield’s proposal is an idea that would have to clear several hurdles to be considered.
Schofield and like-minded advocates who call themselves “intactivists” seek to make it “unlawful to circumcise, excise, cut, or mutilate the whole or any part of the foreskin, testicles, or penis” of anyone 17 or younger in San Francisco.[/blockquote]
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/19/male.circumcision.sf/index.html
An interesting question is how much anti-semitism is still tolerated in the Greek church. Before I left the Orthodox church in 1972, it was not unusual to hear anti-semitism expressed openly from laity and clergy from the old country along the lines of “they killed Christ, so (fill in the blank).” There were a number of parishioners of peasant descent, so I chalked it up to superstitious ill education (naive teenager that I was). I wouldn’t be surprised if American based Orthodoxy has changed for the better (I hope), but the old country…? I don’t know.