Jewish Headstones Smashed in Athens Cemetery

(AFP) — Unknown assailants destroyed several Jewish headstones in a cemetery in a southwestern suburb of Athens, Greek police said Saturday, announcing they would launch an investigation.

“Marble grave headstones were damaged in the Jewish part of the Nikaia cemetery,” a police spokesman told AFP, without giving further details.

The head of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS), Minos Moissis, said he was “very angry” about the desecration, in a Facebook post that included pictures of two broken headstones.

Jewish graves and Holocaust memorials have been a recurring target of vandals in Greece, often by members of the far-right.

The vandalism comes amid rising anti-Semitism in Europe, after a spate of recent incidents across the continent.