YouTube removed a video showing a teenager urinating on the Holocaust memorial in Rhodes.
The video, which was removed Tuesday, shows the boy urinating but his face is hidden by an Israeli flag with the symbol for “no” pasted over it.
The island’s Jewish community and the Jewish Web site www.abravanel.wordpress.com publicized the video, which was uploaded Aug. 22 to YouTube.
The Central Jewish Board, the umbrella organization of Greek Jewry, sent a letter to Interior Minister Prokopi Pavlopoulo asking “for extra security for the synagogue in Rhodes in anticipation of large numbers of Jewish tourists during the High Holidays.”
According to a Web site site called Venetoklio high 5, “A secret group of students of the Venetoklio High School of Rhodes … does not digg at all the Jews who wish to turn the island into a second ‘Land of Canaan.’ ”
The site, which features slang and vulgar language, also says: “After all the propaganda fed even in Religion school books, about the ‘chosen people’ and other bull––, we have decided to take the situation into our own hands and show to everyone with deeds of how much do we really agree with this view.”
The Veneteklio school is one of the oldest in Rhodes, built in 1910, and among the most prestigious in Greece.
The monument has been the target of vandalism in the past, notably over three days after its dedication on June 30, 2002 and during its construction.
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