Athens mayor signs declaration against anti-Semitism

Giorgos Kaminis joins 60 European mayors and 300 American ones in Jewish group’s prejudice awareness campaign

By JTA 21 March 2016, 4:17 am

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Illustrative: Athens's Jewish school. (JTA Photo)

ATHENS, Greece — 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 US 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 European country, France, with 37 percent.