A well-known antisemitic comedian in Greece Tzimis Panousis will have the role of Trigaios, a peace maker in ancient Athens, in the theatrical play “Eirene’’ (Peace) by Aristophanes that will be staged in the ancient theatre of Epidaurus.
Tzimis Panousis was quoted as saying last week in an interview to the daily “To Vima”, that “we the Greeks are the new Jews of the season. Then the Nazis chose the Jews, now the neo-Nazis, the blue family of Schauble, (Germany’s finance minister) have chosen us, the Greeks”.
Panousis has in the past referred to Jews as “Judaeo-Nazis” and in 2013 issued a poster to promote his performances, in which the Star of David was identified with the Nazi swastika.
Central avenues in Athens were full of these posters at the time and only after the intervention of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, the country’s EJC affiliate, were they removed by the authorities.
Rena Kyprioti from the National Theatre of Greece said that the theatre collaborates with more than 200 artists per year and that it regards actors’ views as personal, while “the Artistic Directorate does not comment on statements made by collaborating artists”.
Minos Moisis, President of the Jewish Community of Athens, stated that the comments made by Panousis in his interview “affect me both as a Jew and as a Greek.’’
“As a Jew, because once again the mass murder of the Holocaust is wiped out when it is compared to unrelated modern themes. As a Greek because he isolates me as a supposed victim and target of a Europe in which I want to live. Obviously the National Theatre has the right to make the choice. And my own right is not to go to the performance.”
