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Greek Jewish leaders campaign for equal rights

Updated: 22/May/2006 17:22

Synagogue in Thessaloniki

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ATHENS (EJP) – The president of the Greek Jewish community has called on the country's government to support the Jewish community as it does Christian and Muslim organisations.

Moises Constantinis, president of the Central Jewish Board of Greece said that he wants the government pay the salaries of local rabbis as it pays for Christian priests and Muslim Imams.

“We believe that rabbis should be paid by the Greek Government as well, for equality reasons, given that the believers of the Jewish religion are also taz-paying Greek citizens,” Constantinis told EJP.

Another issue raised by Constantinis is that the community needs to attain the permssion of the regional high ranking Orthodox Priest, the Metropolite, to be allowed to build a new synagogue. The law was passed in 1936 during the dictatorship of Metaxa and Constantinis said the CJBG finds “unfair and anachronistic”.

“We believe the law should be reconsidered and reviewed as the Metropolite should not have any jurisdiction over functional issues that concern other religions” he said.

The Greek government was unavailble when contacted for a response.

One high-ranking Greek Jewish official told EJP: “Of course they will not answer. I would have done the same if I was the government.”

Freedom of religion

Despite the concerns, Constantinis stressed that Jews have always had complete freedom of religion in Greece.

“The Jews do not face any problems in exercising their religious rights according to the constitutionally entrenched principle of freedom of religion,” he said.

Today, there are a total of 13 synagogues in Greece of which only the three in Athens, Thessaloniki and Larisa hold regular services.

The Jewish Communities around Greece are responsible for the operation and preservation of the synagogues as well as for the payroll of the rabbis or any rabbis invited from abroad. Most synagogue buildings are of great historical and architectural interest. The expenses of their operation are either covered by the local Jewish Communities or by the CJBG.

Cemeteries

As well as synagogues, Jewish cemeteries operate in all of the active communities. Although many are in plots that belong to the communities, in some cases a part of a municipal cemetery has been set aside for the Jews.

The CJBG also pays for the preservation of a number of dilapidated and closed Jewish cemeteries spread around Greece. These are in cities such as Drama, Kavala, Xanthi and Kos where the Jewish communities were obliterated during the Holocaust.

During the post-war period, when the Greek Jewish leadership was focused on the aid and rehabilitation of Holocaust survivors and on the re-establisment of Jewish Communities, many cemeteries were lost.

The most prominent example is the former Jewish cemetery of Thessaloniki which had the largest Jewish population and cemetery.

After the war the Aristotelian University of Salonika was built on the site. Most of the marble tombs stones where used for various buildings and all the rights of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki were unappreciated.

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