Greece’s first Jewish mayor, Moisis Elisaf, was laid to rest on Sunday afternoon in the Greek city of Ioannina.
A number of officials were present at the funeral, which was held at the city’s Romaniote Synagogue. These included Greece’s President Katerina Sakellaropoulou; Parliament Speaker Konstantinos Tassoulas; and Metropolitan Maximos of Ioannina, representing the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
The Ambassador of Israel in Greece, Noam Katz, and the United States, George Tsunis, also spoke at the memorial service before the burial.
Parliament Speaker Tassoulas hailed Elisaf as a person who “confronted bigotry, intolerance and segregation and, by fighting these blights of human nature, achieved results…”
Elisaf, a doctor who had been elected mayor as an independent in 2019, died on Friday at 68, after a brief battle with cancer.
In a statement at the time, President Sakellaropoulou extolled his “rare integrity of character” and said he was an “opponent of intolerance and fanaticism, who built bridges between people and inspired with the ethos and his vision.”
Source: Ekathimerini.
