President Alexander Zaimis of Greece today signed a decree abolishing the separate electoral college for the Jews of Salonica. The decree was passed by the senate over the stubborn opposition of the Venizelist members of the body.
The president’s signature on the decree ends a bitter fight which has lasted for years and which caused former premier Elutherios Venizelos to transform his organization into an anti-Semitic party.
At the last election, the Jewish votes aided the present government to defeat decisively the Venizelist group which promptly turned anti-Semitic and denounced the Jews as “enemies of the country.” Previously, the Jews of Salonica, who number 60,000, had voted for candidates on a special Jewish list.
The Jewish community asked the government to abolish the special list for Jews, which the community disliked intensely. The government promised to do so. Venizelist papers in Greece, particularly in Salonica, immediately began a bitter campaign of incitement against the Jews.
Former premier Venizelos himself recently made it clear that he was determined to keep up the fight against the Jews. He issued a manifesto to the voters of Salonica declaring that he did not want any Jews to vote for him and predicting that he would win through “Greek votes alone.”
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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.
