Athens, Greece – Jews: Police Not Protecting Desecrated Cemetery

Athens, Greece – The Greek Jewish community accused the police today of failing to heed their calls for increased security at a cemetery in northwest Greece after three tombs were desecrated.

“Three tombs were desecrated and damaged Monday evening in the cemetery,” President of the Central Jewish Council of Greece (Kis) Moisis Constantinis said.

Constantinis said Kis had asked for security to be beefed up at the cemetery in the northwestern city of Ioannina since the start of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza on December 27, but that “no extra measures had been taken.”

Local media and a watchdog group also criticized police inaction.

It was the fourth time the Ioannina cemetery was targeted in recent years, but Constantinis said this time the vandalism did not include Nazi swastikas.

Meanwhile Kis said anti-Semitic inscriptions had been found on tombs in a Jewish cemetery in Athens earlier this month and on a Jewish monument in Corfu four days after the Gaza conflict began.
It said the desecrations were linked to the Gaza conflict.

The Greek Jewish community today numbers around 6,000. Around 50,000 were massacred during the Nazi occupation.