Antisemitism Summit Draws New York City Mayor to Athens

If you’re traveling to Athens in November it probably isn’t to gawk at the Acropolis, though the iconic temple will loom in the background when New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, arrives at the Greek capital on Wednesday for two-day international parley on antisemitism. The 2022 Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism event is being co-hosted by the city and will be presided over by its young mayor, Kostas Bakoyannis. More than 25 mayors and government leaders from 53 countries will attend, but Mr. Adams’s participation will stand out as he is also expected to ink a memorandum to twin New York City with Athens. The focus of the summit, of course, will be ways to counter a rising tide of antisemitism around the world. In a press statement, Mr. Bakoyannis said, “We see an insidious spread of antisemitism, so there is a need to fight this scourge at the local level as well as to see how these trends are global, and learn best practices from each other towards combating them.”Athens, a sprawling city with more than 3 million inhabitants, will be home to the first in-person summit of this kind; the inaugural Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism was held online last year. Co-organizers are the Combat Antisemitism Movement and the Center for Jewish Impact, in collaboration with the Jewish Federations of North America.The mayors of Albuquerque, Richmond, and Jackson will attend, as will mayors of Paris, Vienna, Malmo, Dortmund, Dresden, and Thessaloniki.After a planned attack against a New York synagogue was thwarted this month, Mr. Adams said that “as mayor of the largest Jewish community in the United States, it is my sacred duty to protect Jewish New Yorkers and this entire community from antisemitism and bigotry.”Greece, like many European countries, is no stranger to antisemitism. One of the most infamous deportations of Jews in World War II was from Thessaloniki, which prior to the war was home to the largest Jewish community in Greece. According to the Department of State, the Germans deported 48,974 Jews, mostly from Thessaloniki, between March and early June 1943, when the city was under Nazi occupation. They were sent to Auschwitz, where nearly all perished. Thessaloniki’s vast Jewish cemetery was completely destroyed.The ghosts of antisemitism haunt Greece. At a recent criminal trial involving the banned neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, a high-profile defense attorney, Konstantinos Plevris, gave two Nazi salutes in the courtroom. His son, Thanos Plevris, who serves as Greek health minister, denounced the salutes. A small Holocaust memorial at Athens, near the foot of the Acropolis, has been vandalized at least twice. In the course of his brief visit to the ancient metropolis, Mr. Adams will doubtless experience some of the famous philotima — Greek hospitality. According to the newspaper Kathimerini, he will visit Athens City Hall in the heart of downtown Athens to sign the memorandum on twinning New York with Athens, which will also call for greater cooperation on tourism, environmental protection, and culture. Prior to that there will be an opening dinner with an address by Greece’s president, Katerina Sakellaropoulou. During the visit Mr. Bakoyannis will accompany Mr. Adams to meet President Sakellaropoulou at her official residence, Kathimerini reported. If he has any spare time before setting off for Qatar after the pass through Athens, we can recommend this great fish restaurant — if Mr. Adams likes seafood, that is.

Antisemitism Summit Draws New York City Mayor to Athens

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