The left-wing anarchist group Rouvikonas under investigation

Greece’s Jewish community has denounced “anti-Zionist patrols” which harassed and intimidated Jews and Israelis on the streets of Thessaloniki, calling the incident a disturbing echo of one of the city’s most violent chapters nearly 95 years after assault squads first targeted its Jewish population.

Last weekend, the left-wing anarchist group Rouvikonas organized what it called “anti-Zionist patrols” through the streets of Thessaloniki – Greece’s second-largest city in the country’s north – saying the demonstrations were intended to confront a growing “Israeli and Zionist infiltration” across the city.

Joined by members of the “Permanent Struggle for Class Liberation” and the “Thessaloniki Liberation Initiative,” individuals were seen marching through the city wearing black T-shirts featuring Palestinian flags.

According to the anti-Israel group, Thessaloniki has become part of a wider process of “colonization” driven by domestic and foreign capital, alleging that Israeli and other investment funds are increasingly buying up beaches, neighbourhoods and villages and displacing local residents in the process.

“Israelis are rushing to invest their money, bloodied by the genocide, into Airbnb and other accommodations, or into plots of land that the Greek state is selling off at bargain prices,” the statement reads.

“While the people of Palestine and Lebanon are being massacred, Zionist tourists, [Israeli] soldiers and their families arrive by the thousands on cruise ships, turning their investment properties into sources of income or holiday homes far removed from the rapes and murders of civilians and children in Gaza,” it continues.

Rouvikonas also accused Israeli investments of serving as part of the Jewish state’s “soft power” strategy, alleging they are used to expand Israel’s economic and political influence abroad while generating profits that are “used to maintain Israel’s expensive, international propaganda machine.”

As long as the Greek government continues military and commercial cooperation with Israel, the group vowed it would continue efforts to ensure that “the genocidaires and Zionists are not welcome in our cities.”

The Central Jewish Council of Greece condemned the demonstrations as a chilling reminder of one of the darkest chapters in the country’s Jewish history, warning that those involved evoked the “assault battalions” that hunted Jews through the streets of Thessaloniki nearly a century ago during the Campbell pogrom.

“In both cases – then and today – hatred against Jews prevails. And today a new climate of Jew-hatred is taking shape that threatens not only Greek Jews but also the well-being of all citizens. Because history teaches that antisemitism begins its course targeting Jews but never stops with Jews,” the statement reads.

“We observe with sadness the tolerance shown by state authorities and social institutions towards this new wave of fanaticism that is manifested against Jewish citizens of the State of Israel,” it continues.

“These ‘assault battalions’ and their followers seek to undermine the strategically important relations between Greece and Israel in a period of instability in the eastern Mediterranean that threatens the security of both countries,” it further says.

Now, local authorities have reportedly launched a preliminary investigation into whether the actions of Rouvikonas and its supporters amounted to public incitement to violence or hatred before taking any further legal action.

Thessaloniki was once home to one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe, with Jews making up more than half the city’s population for centuries — so much so that locals called it “the Mother of Israel.” That world ended in 1943, when Nazi forces deported nearly 50,000 Thessaloniki Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau. More than 90% were murdered in the Holocaust. Today, fewer than 1,000 Jews remain in a city that once thrummed with synagogues, Sephardic culture, and Ladino-speaking street life.

In 1931, the Campbell pogrom erupted in Thessaloniki after false accusations that local Jews were collaborating with Bulgarians and Communists fueled antisemitic violence. Nationalist mobs attacked the city’s Campbell neighborhood, home to a large Jewish community, torching dozens of homes and businesses and forcing many families to flee. 

Although much of the neighborhood was destroyed, those responsible were ultimately acquitted, while government assistance for the devastated Jewish community remained limited.