An RPCV writes on Greece's Anti-Semitism Problem



“In Thessaloniki,” he said in an email interview, “I was talking to my cousin (who is) university educated, intelligent… My cousin told me that many people in Greece think the US government perpetrated 9/11. Then he mentioned that 4,000 Jews did not go to work at the WTC. I was stunned that my cousin, a family member and good friend of mine, even entertained this possibility.” “I don't think these were isolated incidents,” says Peter, “because (this) was said by regular people, well liked and respected in their communities. I would hear comments like that from people on the fringe of society back home. The difference in Greece is that this came from regular people…”

An RPCV writes on Greece's Anti-Semitism Problem

Greece's Anti-Semitism Problem

by a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Zimbabwe

15 September 2004

Despite its recent success hosting the Olympics, Greece is home to an alarming trend of anti-Semitism.

Greece’s success in hosting the summer Olympics in Athens is said by many to be evidence that the Mediterranean nation has come a long way in the past few years. Greece has shown itself to be a modern 21st century nation and proud member of the EU. But despite these obvious successes, Greece is also home to an alarming trend of anti-Semitism.

“Peter,” as he would like to be known, is a Canadian attorney of Greek descent. He speaks both Greek and English, grew up in a Greek community in Canada and says he is very proud of his heritage. But during a recent trip to Greece to visit his relatives, Peter encountered what he described as an alarming trend of anti-Semitism. Most disconcertingly, the anti-Semitic vitriol he heard was spouted by members of his own family.

“In Thessaloniki,” he said in an email interview, “I was talking to my cousin (who is) university educated, intelligent… My cousin told me that many people in Greece think the US government perpetrated 9/11. Then he mentioned that 4,000 Jews did not go to work at the WTC. I was stunned that my cousin, a family member and good friend of mine, even entertained this possibility.”

According to an October 2001 KAPA research poll conducted among 622 households in the greater Athens area, 42% subscribed to the rumor that 4,000 Jews did not go to work in the World Trade Center on September 11, whereas 30% did not.

Later, while visiting relatives in Chania, Crete, Peter said another cousin went on a tirade one night at the dinner table, saying ‘Hitler's biggest mistake was that he did not exterminate all the Jews from the earth.’

“I started sweating and shaking when I heard this,” said Peter. “I couldn't believe a family member of mine was saying this.”

Peter noted that another family member “vehemently disagreed… and started explaining to us his upbringing with the Jews that once lived in Chania before WWII. (His) stories were always interrupted…with stereotypes about Jews being money lovers, loan sharks, etc.”

Peter said that another cousin, a doctor who was educated abroad, “…explained to me that… many people in Crete and Greece share the same (anti-Semitic) views. “

“I don't think these were isolated incidents,” says Peter, “because (this) was said by regular people, well liked and respected in their communities. I would hear comments like that from people on the fringe of society back home. The difference in Greece is that this came from regular people…”

According to a report from the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) entitled "Manifestations of Anti-Semitism in the EU – 2002-2003," several incidences of vandalism against Holocaust memorials have occurred in recent years in Greece. One incident, in which persons unknown vandalized a Jewish cemetery with Nazi graffiti, was described as “barbaric” by a government spokesperson.

One of the most foreboding parts of the EUMC report said that the spokesperson of the Jewish community in Rhodes "…complained of verbal and physical harassment of workers constructing the Holocaust monument requiring constant police protection.”

The report did not cite any instances of violent attacks resulting in serious injury. It also said that no current studies on Greek anti-Semitism were available, but it did suggest a general atmosphere of verbally expressed anti-Semitism. It also suggested that the Greek media could be playing a role in this, and cited two articles written by Greek journalists who wrote that Jews are using the Holocaust to win sympathy in the Palestinian issue. The report also said that cartoons with anti-Semitic content appeared in newspapers during this time.

Dr. Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an NGO, noted that "Greece has done nothing to pursue those guilty of hate crimes, to condemn Nazi-style slurs in the media, nor even to express its concern at this situation to the Greek people.” The center even issued a travel advisory to Jews traveling in Greece.

But Greece is not the only such country in Europe. There have also been anti-Semitic instances reported in several other European nations, enough for an EUMC media summary to state flatly that “Europe has a problem with anti-Semitism.”

“On the whole,” concludes Peter, “I had a very positive experience in Greece. I felt the country was doing a good job balancing tradition and maintaining the richness of its unique culture with modernity, which pleased me. This is why the anti-Semitic comments that I heard upset me to the point that it actually stained my trip there.”

When this story was posted in October 2004, this was on the front page of PCOL:

Director Gaddi Vasquez: The PCOL Interview PCOL sits down for an extended interview with Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez. Read the entire interview from start to finish and we promise you will learn something about the Peace Corps you didn't know before. Plus the debate continues over Safety and Security.

Schwarzenegger praises PC at Convention Governor Schwarzenegger praised the Peace Corps at the Republican National Convention: "We're the America that sends out Peace Corps volunteers to teach village children." Schwarzenegger has previously acknowledged his debt to his father-in-law, Peace Corps Founding Director Sargent Shriver, for teaching him "the joy of public service" and Arnold is encouraging volunteerism by creating California Service Corps and tapping his wife, Maria Shriver, to lead it. Leave your comments and who can come up with the best Current Events Funny?

Peace Corps: One of the Best Faces of America Teresa Heinz Kerry celebrates the Peace Corps Volunteer as one of the best faces America has ever projected in a speech to the Democratic Convention. The National Review disagreed and said that Heinz's celebration of the PCV was "truly offensive." What's your opinion and can you come up with a Political Funny?

Read the stories and leave your comments.

By Harry (as5300-3.216-194-7-87.nyc.ny.metconnect.net - 216.194.7.87) on Sunday, May 08, 2005 - 2:43 pm: Edit Post

Well do you say they have a reason that so many are like that? lets look at history to see.

here are some links
http://www.jewwatch.com/

LOOK what the JEWS think think!!!
http://www.talmudunmasked.com/chapter14.htm
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/talmud2.htm

WASHINGTON, GEORGE, in Maxims of George Washington by A. A. Appleton & Co.
"They (the Jews) work more effectively against us, than the enemy's armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in... It is much to be lamented that each state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pest to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America."

AQUINAS, THOMAS, Saint. 13th century scholastic philosopher. In his "On the Governance of the Jews," he wrote:
"The Jews should not be allowed to keep what they have obtained from others by usury; it were best that they were compelled to worked so that they could earn their living instead of doing nothing but becoming avaricious.

HILAIARE BELLOC, in the book THE JEWS, page 9
"There is already something like a Jewish monopoly in high finance ... There is the same element of Jewish monopoly in the silver trade, and in the control of various other metals, notably lead, nickel, quicksilver. What is most disquieting of all, this tendency to monopoly is spreading like a disease."


JESUS CHRIST, speaking to the Jews in the Gospel of St. John, VIII:44
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lust of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is not truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it. - then answered the Jews - "

"He that is of God beareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, BECAUSE YE ARE NOT OF GOD."

MARTIN LUTHER, Table Talk of Martin Luther, translated by William Hazlet, page 43
"But the Jews are so hardened that they listen to nothing; though overcome by testimonies they yield not an inch. It is a pernicious race, oppressing all men by their usury and rapine. If they give a prince or magistrate a thousand florins, they extort twenty thousand from the subjects in payment. We must ever keep on guard against them."

ST. JOHN, Gospel of St. John VII:1
"After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry because the Jews sought to kill him."

JEFFERSON, THOMAS. 18th century American statesman.
"Dispersed as the Jews are, they still form one nation, foreign to the land they live in. " (D. Boorstin, THE AMERICANS)
"Those who labor in the earth are the Chosen People of God, if ever he had a chosen people. " (NOTES ON VIRGINIA)

==================================== =
Look at the Jewish holy book the Talmud
KALLAH, lb, (18b) - "Jesus was illegitimate and was conceived during menstruation."
SCABBATH XIV - "Jesus is referred to as the son of a Roman soldier and a Jewish prostitute."
SANHEDRIN, 103a - "This passage suggests that Christ corrupted His morals and dishonored Himself."
SANHEDRIN, 107b - "This passage states that Christ seduced and destroyed Israel."
HILKOTH MELAKHIM - Suggests that Christians sin by worshipping Jesus Christ.
HILKOTH MAAKHALOTH - This states that Christians are idolaters.
ORACH CHAIIM (20, 2) - Says that Christians disguise themselves as Jews in order to kill them.
ABHODAH ZORAH (1 Sb) - Suggests that Christians have sex relations with animals.
CHAGIGAH, (1 Sb) - States that a Jew is considered to be good in the eyes of God, in spite of any sins he may commit.
BABHA KAMA (1 13b) - States that the name of God is not profaned, if a Jew lies to a Christian.

====================
http://www.scripturesforamerica.org/html2/jm0038.htm
should we bann the bible?

By affinity (c-68-81-239-75.hsd1.pa.comcast.net - 68.81.239.75) on Sunday, June 11, 2006 - 9:22 am: Edit Post

I don't know the policies of the board. But, it is very sad indeed when a peacecorp board has such hate twisted propaganda on it. The other responder's post is full of mis-information taken straight from hate sites. Including:

1. George Washington never made that alleged statement about Jews: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/thejews.htm

2. The list of allegations about the Talmud alleges quotations that don't exist and references books that don't exist. In fact the word and group "Christian" did not exist in the time of the Talmud. One can read what the Talmud actually says by either going to a Jewish bookstore and picking one up with English translation or here: http://talmud.faithweb.com/