Severely condemning the recent anti-Jewish events in Saloniki, Premier Eleutherios Venizelos of Greece today told a Jewish delegation, which he received at luncheon in the Greek legation, that the Greek government was now considering measures to make a repetition of those events impossible.
Terming the Saloniki occurrences “unfortunate,” Premier Venizelos declared that “I am happy to think that my condemnation is not only on behalf of the government but also on behalf of the leaders of every party in parliament. The disturbances were in no way attributable to provocation on the part of the Jews, as has been alleged, but were due solely to propaganda on the part of extreme nationalists.”
The delegation that Premier Venizelos received was comprised of O. E. d’Avigdor Goldsmid, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and chairman of the Council of the Jewish Agency; Leonard Montefiore, president of the Anglo-Jewish Association, and J. M. Rich, secretary of the Joint Foreign Committee of the Board and the Association.
Premier Venizelos’ statement to the delegation of British Jews was a reiteration of two previous declarations he had made on the subject of the Saloniki outbreak. On June 26, speaking in the Greek parliament, he raised his voice against the attacks on Jews, declaring that the hooligans who perpetrated them were dishonoring Greece. On July 3 he cabled to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in London that the Jews of the world need have no further anxiety for the safety of the Jews of Saloniki.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
