There has been widespread condemnation of claims made by a Syriza politician that the name of the country's new state broadcaster Nerit has Jewish roots and that Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s recent visit to Thessaloniki Synagogue was an act threatening Greece.It looks like Kaypidis' Facebook post also said that Jewish girls born during Chanukah are named "Nera" and that Chanukah is an anti-Greek holiday.
Theodoros Karypidis, who was selected at the weekend as Syriza's candidate for the post of regional governor of Western Macedonia, made the comments in a Facebook post on June 15 that came to light on Wednesday.
In the post, Karypidis claimed that the new station’s acronym is linked to the Hebrew word for candle - Ner - and that candles lit during the Jewish festival of Hanukkah celebrate Jewish victory over ancient Greece.
"Samaras is lighting the candles (Nerit) in the seven branched candelabra of the Jews and lighting Greece on fire after his visit to Thessaloniki Synagogue ... He is organising a new Hanukkah against the Greeks," wrote Karypidis, a journalist who has hosted Golden Dawn figures on his local television show.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the American Jewish Committee said it was is "appalled by the antisemitic statements".
"Vile, outrageous expressions of antisemitism in Greece are coming not only from Golden Dawn on the far right but also, as Theodoros Karypidis's Facebook post illustrates, from the far left," said the AJC's executive director, David Harris.
"Prime Minister Samaras and his government laudably reject these dangerous attacks and recognise the right of the Greek Jews, like all Greek citizens, to live in peace and dignity."
"Whipping up hatred of Jews, for all kinds of alleged conspiracies, is an all-too-familiar and long-time tactic of political extremists with nothing constructive to offer about real-life issues facing their country," said Harris.
"It also reveals once again that, for all their purported differences, far-right and -left politicians can have more in common than they might otherwise admit - the capacity for blind hatred, bigotry and demagoguery." he continued.
(h/t Yosef)