ATHENS (JTA) — A Greek newspaper in a front-page headline called Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme "The Jewish bond."
To Proto Thema, a leading weekly, devoted five pages of its Dec. 21 edition to the Madoff scandal, emphasizing at least six times that Madoff is Jewish and calling him the "Jewish guru of the market."
The paper used the Greek term Evraios, or Hebrews, to imply that Jews are behind the world’s financial problems.
Chief editor Themos Anastasiadis is no stranger to the Jewish community. In 1995, Anastasiadis made a public joke about the Holocaust. After the Central Jewish Board complained to the Union of Journalists of Athens, his license was suspended for a month.
The president of the Central Jewish Board, Moisis Konstantinis, said his organization is looking into how to respond to the latest incident.
Anastasiadis told JTA, "As you know, the Madoff bond is called by the international media ‘The Jewish bond.’ Should a Muslim had done that, it would be called the ‘Muslim bond.’ It is obvious that our title had only that in mind.
"As for the rest of the story," he said, "nothing suggests what you imply."
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