From: KELLY@SUVM.BITNET
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Cultural Counsellor to Royal Greek Embassy in London Confirms
           Historical Greek Bigotry
Date: 20 Aug 92 02:52:56 GMT


  A Silver Medallist of the Academy of Athens Exposes Greek Barbarism


>
>"THE RELIGIOUS MINORITIES OF CHIOS: JEWS AND ROMAN CATHOLICS" by Philip
>P.Argenti and forwarded by Sir Steven Runciman  (Cambridge, at the Uni-
>versity Press; 1970)
>
>Contents here: --> Introduction
>               --> Under turkish Rule,1566-1912
>               --> Decline of Chian Catholicism
>                                                              A.Romanos
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>

  After checking this pro-Greek history book recommended by Mr. Romanos,
  we find the following  information about the author:


                       Philip P. Argenti

  'CORRESPONDING MEMBER AND SILVER MEDALLIST OF THE ACADEMY OF ATHENS,

      FORMER CULTURAL COUNSELLOR TO ROYAL GREEK EMBASSY IN LONDON'




  Philip P. Argenti (Corresponding Member and Silver Medallist of the
  Academy of Athens, Former Cultural Counsellor to Royal Greek Embassy
  in London), The Religious Minorities of Chios: Jews and Roman Catholics,
  Cambridge University Press, London, (1970).

  GREEK BIGOTRY IN THE FIRST CENTURY


  page 29:

  <<Another common calumny was to the effect that the Jews regularly took
  and murdered a Gentile for ritual purposes. The earliest known writer
  to make this charge was Damocritos, a Greek historian of the first
  century after Christ; according to him the Jews captured a Gentile
  every seven years and immolated him in their temple, cutting his flesh
  into small pieces. The Greek-Egyptian writer, Apion, provided a more
  detailed version; according to him, when Antiochus Epiphanes entered
  the Temple at Jerusalem he found a Greek lying on a bed surrounded by
  good food; the Greek had learnt that every year at a particular time
  the Jews captured a Greek traveller, imprisoned him for a year, and
  then murdered him ceremonially in a wood, tasting the blood of his
  entrails and swearing hatred of all Greeks. This particular superstition,
  better known as the accusation of ritual murder, has persisted, in many
  forms, with undiminished insistence, through the centuries, down to
  modern times; it has been particularly effective in arousing unbridled
  and irrational passion among fanatical Gentile populations, and has
  consequently been the cause of numberless violent persecutions.

  Perhaps the best known of the Greek antisemitic writers is Apion, who
  was unrivalled in his rigid hostility to the Jews. In addition to making
  the charges already mentioned, he repeated the old accusation that the
  Jews were not a historic people, but were descended from a heretical
  and plague-ridden sect that had been expelled from Egypt by force, rather
  than led out by divine guidance. He alleged, furthermore, that the Jews
  were inferior to Gentiles, and that their continual state of subjection
  and lack of outstanding individuals was proof of their inherent
  inferiority; finally he poured scorn and ridicule on Jewish religious
  practices.>>

  GREEK BIGOTRY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

  page 175:

  <<The large sea-port town of Smyrna (Izmir), situated on the mainland
  coast to the east of Chios, was the scene of constant friction between
  Greeks and Jews, which frequently gave rise to outbursts of violence,
  the reverberations of which would be felt in neighboring places with a
  Jewish population, such as Chios. The most common cause of mob assaults
  on the Jews was the ritual murder accusation, the infamous calumny
  which had originated among the Greeks of Hellenistic times. Nineteenth-
  century Smyrna witnessed a whole series of such accusations, the first
  of modern times having occurred in 1774 in the time of Rabbi Haim ben
  Jacob Aboulafia. In 1864 a Greek child disappeared as Easter approached
  when the Jews were commonly believed to be preparing for this terrible
  ceremony. The accusation of ritual murder was made. The child's body
  was soon found in the well of a house where he had fallen while playing,
  but not before bloody attacks had been made on the Jews. In April 1872
  another instance occurred. A Greek child was missing, so for two days
  the Jews of Smyrna received violent treatment from the Greek mob; two
  Jewish women were killed, and several Jews injured. On the second day
  the child's body was found in a sewer, and seven doctors testified
  that there was no sign of blood having been extracted from it.
  But the anti-Jewish furore of the Christian community could not be
  quelled; during Easter a crowd of Greeks bearing religious banners
  and armed with knives marched on the Jewish quarter, and only the tardy
  intervention of the Turkish authorities averted wholesale massacre.

  Meanwhile, when the news of the alleged kidnapping in Smyrna was heard
  in Chios, a band of Greeks immediately marched into the Jewish quarter
  in the Kastro and did much damage to Jewish property. For similar
  reasons there was another attack in 1892. In that year a Greek child
  disappeared, and the Greeks of Chios made the infamous charge against
  the Jewish community. The Turkish authorities attempted to restrain
  the mob from violence while searches were carried out, but Jews underwent
  some manhandling before the child was discovered, quite unharmed, in a
  drain where he had fallen whilst playing. Eight years later, the rumour
  spread in Chios that it had fallen to the Jews of the town to abduct a
  Christian, and the disappearance of two Greek boys was connected with
  them. It transpired that the children had gone to another village, and
  their parents, who had instigated the calumny on this occasion, were
  punished by the Turkish authorities.

  An additional cause of tension between the Greek and Jewish communities
  of Turkey in the second half of the nineteenth century was the persistence
  of chronically bad relations between the young kingdom of Greece and the
  Porte over the large tracts of territory which were generally considered
  properly part of Greece. Not unnaturally the Greeks still under
  Turkish rule were ardent supporters of the cause of the Government of
  Greece in its confrontation with the Porte. But not less naturally,
  the Jews of Turkey had no such loyalties, and tended to support their
  legitimate rulers. In Chios this allignment of sympathies gave rise to
  many violent incidents. At moments of exceptional excitement, such as
  the move to war in 1881 (averted at the last moment), and the actual
  shooting war in 1897 (which was a disaster for the Greek cause) Jews were
  assaulted in the streets by Chians; even the peasants of the villages
  gave expression to their patriotism by boycotting the Jewish pedlars
  who traded amongst them.>>

Nejat
Xref: sparky soc.culture.turkish:8954 talk.politics.mideast:18692 talk.politics.soviet:7039 soc.culture.greek:7599 soc.culture.europe:7384 soc.history:7418