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Hillel, when my Dad returned from fighting in WWII, he used to tell us stories about what he'd seen over there. He used to tell us what it was like to be in the second wave that liberated Dachau. He used to tell us that he never forgot the smell of rotting bodies, burning bodies and the sight of Jews wasting away because of the way they had been treated by the Germans.There was one thing that I knew for sure as I was growing up and that was that no one would ever chant "gas the Jews" and get away with it, burn down synagogues without a world wide outcry, or in other ways rally the hatred that was created by Hitler.I was wrong.Do I think that the police shooting tear gas into people's backyards bodes ill for the Jews?I can't find it right now but one policeman said, "We have the right to do what we please to anybody that we want to and whether you like it or not doesn't matter to us."That was one policeman. Hitler was one thug.Antisemitism on rise across Europe ‘in worst times since the Nazis’In the space of just one week last month, according to Crif, the umbrella group for France’s Jewish organisations, eight synagogues were attacked. One, in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles, was firebombed by a 400-strong mob. A kosher supermarket and pharmacy were smashed and looted; the crowd’s chants and banners included “Death to Jews” and “Slit Jews’ throats”. That same weekend, in the Barbes neighbourhood of the capital, stone-throwing protesters burned Israeli flags: “Israhell”, read one banner.In Germany last month, molotov cocktails were lobbed into the Bergische synagogue in Wuppertal – previously destroyed on Kristallnacht – and a Berlin imam, Abu Bilal Ismail, called on Allah to “destroy the Zionist Jews … Count them and kill them, to the very last one.” Bottles were thrown through the window of an antisemitism campaigner in Frankfurt; an elderly Jewish man was beaten up at a pro-Israel rally in Hamburg; an Orthodox Jewish teenager punched in the face in Berlin. In several cities, chants at pro-Palestinian protests compared Israel’s actions to the Holocaust; other notable slogans included: “Jew, coward pig, come out and fight alone,” and “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas.”Across Europe, the conflict in Gaza is breathing new life into some very old, and very ugly, demons. This is not unusual; police and Jewish civil rights organisations have long observed a noticeable spike in antisemitic incidents each time the Israeli-Palestinian conflict flares. During the three weeks of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in late 2008 and early 2009, France recorded 66 antisemitic incidents, including attacks on Jewish-owned restaurants and synagogues and a sharp increase in anti-Jewish graffiti.But according to academics and Jewish leaders, this time it is different. More than simply a reaction to the conflict, they say, the threats, hate speech and violent attacks feel like the expression of a much deeper and more widespread antisemitism, fuelled by a wide range of factors, that has been growing now for more than a decade.“These are the worst times since the Nazi era,” Dieter Graumann, president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, told the Guardian. “On the streets, you hear things like ‘the Jews should be gassed’, ‘the Jews should be burned’ – we haven’t had that in Germany for decades. Anyone saying those slogans isn’t criticising Israeli politics, it’s just pure hatred against Jews: nothing else. And it’s not just a German phenomenon. It’s an outbreak of hatred against Jews so intense that it’s very clear indeed.”Roger Cukierman, president of France’s Crif, said French Jews were “anguished” about an anti-Jewish backlash that goes far beyond even strongly felt political and humanitarian opposition to the current fighting: “They are not screaming ‘Death to the Israelis’ on the streets of Paris,” Cukierman said last month. “They are screaming ‘Death to Jews’.” Crif’s vice-president Yonathan Arfi said he “utterly rejected” the view that the latest increase in antisemitic incidents was down to events in Gaza. “They have laid bare something far more profound,” he said.Nor is it just Europe’s Jewish leaders who are alarmed. Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, has called the recent incidents “an attack on freedom and tolerance and our democratic state”. The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, has spoken of “intolerable” and clearly antisemitic acts: “To attack a Jew because he is a Jew is to attack France. To attack a synagogue and a kosher grocery store is quite simply antisemitism and racism”.France, whose 500,000-strong Jewish community is one of Europe’s largest, and Germany, where the post-war exhortation of “Never Again” is part of the fabric of modern society, are not alone. In Austria last month, a pre-season friendly between Maccabi Haifa and German Bundesliga team SC Paderborn had to be rescheduled after the Israeli side’s previous match was called off following an attempted assault on its players.The Netherlands’ main antisemitism watchdog, Cidi, had more than 70 calls from alarmed Jewish citizens in one week last month; the average is normally three to five. An Amsterdam rabbi, Binjamin Jacobs, had his front door stoned, and two Jewish women were attacked – one beaten, the other the victim of arson – after they hung Israeli flags from their balconies. In Belgium, a woman was reportedly turned away from a shop with the words: “We don’t currently sell to Jews.”In Italy, the Jewish owners of dozens of shops and other businesses in Rome arrived to find swastikas and anti-Jewish slogans daubed on shutters and windows. One slogan read: “Every Palestinian is like a comrade. Same enemy. Same barricade”; another: “Jews, your end is near.” Abd al-Barr al-Rawdhi, an imam from the north eastern town of San Donà di Piave, is to be deported after being video-recorded giving a sermon calling for the extermination of the Jews.There has been no violence in Spain, but the country’s small Jewish population of 35,000-40,000 fears the situation is so tense that “if it continues for too long, bad things will happen,” the leader of Madrid’s Jewish community, David Hatchard, said. The community is planning action against El Mundo after the daily paper published a column by 83-year-old playwright Antonio Gala questioning Jews’ ability to live peacefully with others: “It’s not strange they have been so frequently expelled.”Studies suggest antisemitism may indeed be mounting. A 2012 survey by the EU’s by the Fundamental Rights agency of some 6,000 Jews in eight European countries – between them, home to 90% of Europe’s Jewish population – found 66% of respondents felt antisemitism in Europe was on the rise; 76% said antisemitism had increased in their country over the past five years. In the 12 months after the survey, nearly half said they worried about being verbally insulted or attacked in public because they were Jewish.Jewish organisations that record antisemitic incidents say the trend is inexorable: France’s Society for the Protection of the Jewish Community says annual totals of antisemitic acts in the 2000s are seven times higher than in the 1990s. French Jews are leaving for Israel in greater numbers, too, for reasons they say include antisemitism and the electoral success of the hard-right Front National. The Jewish Agency for Israel said 1,407 French Jews left for Israel in 2013, a 72% rise on the previous year. Between January and May this year, 2,250 left, against 580 in the same period last year.In a study completed in February, America’s Anti-Defamation League surveyed 332,000 Europeans using an index of 11 questions designed to reveal strength of anti-Jewish stereotypes. It found that 24% of Europeans – 37% in France, 27% in Germany, 20% in Italy – harboured some kind of anti-Jewish attitude.So what is driving the phenomenon? Valls, the French prime minister, has acknowledged a “new”, “normalised” antisemitism that he says blends “the Palestinian cause, jihadism, the devastation of Israel, and hatred of France and its values”.Mark Gardner of the Community Security Trust, a London-based charity that monitors antisemitism both in Britain and on the continent, also identifies a range of factors. Successive conflicts in the Middle East he said, have served up “a crush of trigger events” that has prevented tempers from cooling: the second intifada in 2000, the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006, and the three Israel–Hamas conflicts in 2009, 2012 and 2014 have “left no time for the situation to return to normal.” In such a climate, he added, three brutal antisemitic murders in the past eight years – two in France, one in Belgium, and none coinciding with Israeli military action – have served “not to shock, but to encourage the antisemites”, leaving them “seeking more blood and intimidation, not less”.In 2006, 23-year old Ilan Halimi was kidnapped, tortured and left for dead in Paris by a group calling itself the Barbarians Gang, who subsequently admitted targeting him “because he was a Jew, so his family would have money”. Two years ago, in May 2012, Toulouse gunman Mohamed Merah shot dead seven people, including three children and a young rabbi outside their Jewish school. And in May this year Mehdi Nemmouche, a Frenchman of Algerian descent thought to have recently returned to France after a year in Syria fighting with radical Islamists, was charged with shooting four people at the Jewish museum in Brussels.If the French establishment has harboured a deep vein of anti-Jewish sentiment since long before the Dreyfus affair, the influence of radical Islam, many Jewish community leaders say, is plainly a significant contributing factor in the country’s present-day antisemitism. But so too, said Gardner, is a straightforward alienation that many young Muslims feel from society. “Often it’s more to do with that than with Israel. Many would as soon burn down a police station as a synagogue. Jews are simply identified as part of the establishment.”While he stressed it would be wrong to lay all the blame at the feet of Muslims, Peter Ulrich, a research fellow at the centre for antisemitism research (ZfA) at Berlin’s Technical University, agreed that some of the “antisemitic elements” Germany has seen at recent protests could be “a kind of rebellion of people who are themselves excluded on the basis of racist structures.”Arfi said that in France antisemitism had become “a portmanteau for a lot of angry people: radical Muslims, alienated youths from immigrant families, the far right, the far left”. But he also blamed “a process of normalisation, whereby antisemitism is being made somehow acceptable”. One culprit, Arfi said, is the controversial comedian Dieudonné: “He has legitimised it. He’s made acceptable what was unacceptable.”A similar normalisation may be under way in Germany, according to a 2013 study by the Technical University of Berlin. In 14,000 hate-mail letters, emails and faxes sent over 10 years to the Israeli embassy in Berlin and the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Professor Monika Schwarz-Friesel found that 60% were written by educated, middle-class Germans, including professors, lawyers, priests and university and secondary school students. Most, too, were unafraid to give their names and addresses – something she felt few Germans would have done 20 or 30 years ago.Almost every observer pointed to the unparalleled power of unfiltered social media to inflame and to mobilise. A stream of shocking images and Twitter hashtags, including #HitlerWasRight, amount, Arfi said, almost to indoctrination. “The logical conclusion, in fact, is radicalisation: on social media people self-select what they see, and what they see can be pure, unchecked propaganda. They may never be confronted with opinions that are not their own.”Additional reporting by Josie Le Blond in Berlin​, Kim Willsher in Paris, John Hooper in Rome and Ashifa Kassam in Madridguardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2014

“Romaniote” Jewish communities were present in Greece since 300 BC and were well accepted/integrated.Several Synagogues were found in Ancient Greece, including on the island of Delos famous for its sanctuary of Apollo. Below, the ruins of the ancient Synagogue of Rhodos:The perception however changed during the Byzantine Empire due to the Orthodox Church prejudice against non-believers such as Jews, pagan Hellens, Catholics and Muslims. Jews were particularly singled out as “murderers of the Christ”.“Burning of Judas” ritual of Greek Orthodox Easter:In newly independent Greece, Enlightenment supporters, like elsewhere in Europe, favoured the integration of Jews in society. Greece’s first head of government, Count I. Kapodistrias extended full citizenship rights to Greek Jews in 1830. This of course didn’t mean that all the Greeks agreed.The rise of “left wing movements” in the late 19th century saw it proponents assimilate wealthy Jews to capitalism and exploitation.Post WWII, the creation of the State of Israel fuelled antisemitism in Greece as conservatives took up the defence of embattled Jerusalem’s Greek Orthodox Patriarchate as well as that of the numerous Palestinian Orthodox community. In parallel, the Greek left stridently supported the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in its struggle against the State of Israel.1982, Andreas Papandreou receiving Yasser Arafat as a head of State in Athens:This extreme right and left antisemitic bedrock was greatly expanded in the aftermath of the 2011 “Greek crisis” which saw all sorts of extremism and conspirationism pervade multiple levels of Greek society.In ADL’s 2014 Global 100 survey of anti-Semitic attitudes, Greece occupied the unenviable position of having the highest score in the world (outside the Middle East). Among Greeks, 69% of the population agreed with a majority of anti-Semitic stereotypes tested. This was a 150% increase from year 2000 Eurobarometer poll where 24 percent of Greeks said they were bothered by the presence of people of another race, and 21 percent were bothered by those of another religion living in Greece.The period 2012–2016 was characterised by the rise of xenophobic Neo Nazi party Golden Dawn.The already high 2000 figures can be partially explained by the very high numbers (10% of the national population) of foreign migrants which arrived in Greece from Eastern Europe during the 1990s, mostly as illegal immigrants seeking employment. Increasing numbers of Middle Eastern, Asian and African illegal migrants were later added, putting a strain on employment and social services, further fuelling xenophobia.In conclusion, Greek statistics tend confirm, as it is the case with many other people, that xenophobia rises when the number of “foreigners” living off the country exceeds 10% of the “native population” and further increases in times of great economic duress.In deed, Eurostat data showed 22.2 percent of the population were “severely materially deprived” in 2015, from 6% in 2000.Anti-Semitism in Greece: Embedded in Society“An Interview with Moses Altsech, by Manfred Gerstenfeld. August 2004.Anti-Semitism in Greece occurs not only among extreme rightists and leftists. It is embedded in Greek mainstream society and manifests itself in religious contexts, education, politics and the media. Jews are often not perceived as true Greeks, although many families have lived there since the 15th century.A Eurobarometer survey in the year 2000 showed Greece to have the highest degree of xenophobia in the European Union.Greek mainstream media regularly uses the terms "genocide," "Holocaust" and the names of concentration camps drawing a parallel between Nazi Germany and Israel today. In this, Greece is more similar to Syria and Iran than to the Western world.As the Greek Jewish community is small and not very vocal, the international condemnations of Greek anti-Semitism by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Anti-Defamation League and others are especially important.Jews Not Perceived as True Greeks"Anti-Semitism occurs in Greece not only among extreme rightists and leftists, but is embedded in Greek mainstream society. It manifests itself in many ways: in a religious context, in education, in the application of the law, in the media, and through politically-motivated anti-Semitism in the major parties, as well."Greek-born Moses Altsech teaches at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin, and has long researched anti-Semitism in his native country. He asserts that for the ordinary citizen, to be Greek means to be white, ethnic Greek and Greek Orthodox, even if this is not stated explicitly. "In view of the way most Greeks perceive their identity, they have difficulty understanding how someone who is not Christian can be truly Greek."For political reasons, the Turks in northeastern Greece are never mentioned as a Turkish minority, but as a Muslim one. There are few blacks in Greece, but even if they are born in the country and speak the language fluently, many people do not perceive them as Greek. My family has been in the country - like most Greek Jews - since the end of the fifteenth century, after their expulsion from Spain. We are still not considered true Greeks because of the mainstream perceptions of what it means to be Greek. It doesn't enter the average person's mind that someone can be fully Greek without being Orthodox. This exclusion is fuelled by both religious and educational elements which have given most Greek people an 'us versus them' mentality in relation to the Jews."A 2000 Eurobarometer survey showed that 38 percent of Greeks - the highest percentage in the European Union - were troubled by the presence of people of other nationalities living in their country. I think that when the survey was taken, the Greeks were referring to the Albanians, in particular. The popular notion was that crime became rampant because of the Albanian immigration - as if there had been none before. In that survey, 24 percent of Greeks said they were bothered by the presence of people of another race, and 21 percent were bothered by those of another religion living in Greece. These were among the highest percentages in EU countries.1 On 12 March 2004, Chrysi Avghi (Golden Dawn), the new weekly newspaper of the Neo-Nazi organization of that name, cited another survey indicating that the percentage of Greeks who view immigrants unfavorably is 89 percent.2"This xenophobia causes all minorities - religious or ethnic - to adopt defensive postures and to feel the constant need to reaffirm their patriotism and to prove that they are truly Greek. In a democracy this should not occur. Jews were never easily identified as such in Greece, except by their names; yet they were usually treated as foreign elements in society. The best way to explain this is that Jews and other minorities were only reluctantly tolerated in Greece. This means that Greeks were willing to put up with minorities rather than accept them."Attitudes toward Israel"Negative attitudes in Greece toward Israel are clear-cut and shared by the majority of the population. Not only in obscure anti-Semitic journals, but also in mainstream media, one sees many comparisons between Israel and the Nazis. These papers frequently claim that Israelis are engaging in genocide against the Palestinian people."References to Auschwitz, Mauthausen and Dachau are often made in cartoons depicting Israeli soldiers as Nazi soldiers. Government officials and politicians occasionally make similar remarks. Mainstream media callously and indiscriminately uses terms such as 'genocide,' and 'Holocaust' against Israel. In this, Greece is more similar to Syria and Iran than to the Western world."A typical example of such mainstream racism was the blatant referral to Israeli military actions as 'genocide' in March 2002 by the Socialist Speaker of Greek Parliament, Apostolos Kaklamanis. This attitude was supported by government spokesman Christos Protopapas, who said that Kaklamanis spoke 'with sensitivity and responsibility...expressing the sentiments of the Parliament and Greek people.'"3Anti-Americanism and Attacks on IsraelAltsech adds: "Anti-Israel feelings are also linked to anti-American ones. Anti-Americanism has been rampant in Greece for decades for a variety of reasons. The day after 9/11, the Ta Nea daily - which is reputed to have the largest circulation in Greece and is close to the then ruling Socialist Pasok party - printed a black-framed front page with a picture of the World Trade Center being hit by a plane with only a brief caption saying that this was a big tragedy. It then proceeded to ask what the world could fear from the American paranoid reaction, which would threaten world peace. Although the paper, like most Greeks, was sympathetic to Americans at that moment, its perception of the event was insane and distorted."Much anti-Americanism originates in residual sentiments from the days of the Greek civil war at the end of World War II, when American support of right-wing resistance fighters helped keep communist resistance groups from gaining control of the country. The military dictatorship, which overthrew the democratic Greek government and ruled Greece from 1967 until democracy was fully restored in 1974, was backed by the United States, although it did not instigate the coup. This led to additional resentment against the United States."Many Greeks also perceive that after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, the Americans supported Turkey in many respects. Given that Turkey has been the archenemy of Greece since Byzantine times, all these combined perceptions have created a strong anti-American current in public opinion. The war in Kosovo inflamed anti-American sentiment, as Greeks alone stood by their Christian Orthodox Serb brethren against NATO's bombing to stop the Serb massacre of ethnic Albanians. With the recent war in Iraq, anti-American sentiment has become pan-European, but in Greece, it has long-standing roots."Very often, demonstrations take place in front of the American embassy from where the protesters walk to the Israeli embassy. In these demonstrations, comparisons of the Star of David with the swastika are rife.4 There is the strong popular notion that the Zionists and the Jews - the words are used interchangeably - are very powerful through the Jewish lobby in America. Often Jews and Zionists are mentioned as perpetrators of crime who operate through an international conspiracy."A Country with Selected Brethren"Greeks will regularly tell you that they back the Palestinians and are strongly anti-Israel out of solidarity with the oppressed and suffering Palestinians. However, in the mid-90s, when the Christian Orthodox Serbs were slaughtering the Bosnian Muslims and committing many war crimes, the great majority of Greeks supported the Serbs. There were major anti-NATO demonstrations and strong pro-Serb and anti-American political statements were common."Former Greek President Christos Sartzetakis once made the famous statement: 'Greeks are a nation without brethren.' Yet there are frequent references to 'our Palestinian brothers.' There is also proof that the Greek socialist government sympathized with Arab terrorist murderers of Jews."In a study on Greek anti-Semitism he published almost ten years ago under the pen name Daniel Perdurant, Altsech wrote that at the end of 1988 under Pasok rule "following a judicial investigation, the Athens Court of Appeals and the Greek Supreme Court decided that Abdel Osama Al-Zomar, an alleged Palestinian terrorist apprehended in Greece, should be extradited to Italy to face charges of bombing the synagogue of Rome in October 1982, injuring thirty-four people and killing a three-year-old child. Greek Justice Minister V. Rotis used his authority to overrule the court decisions, stating that Osama's acts were part of the 'Palestinian struggle for liberation of their homeland, and, therefore, cannot be considered acts of terrorism.'"5Altsech comments: "Rotis compared these deeds to the acts of terrorism as part of anti-Nazi resistance during World War II. Osama could choose a country to fly to and went to Libya. The Washington Post wrote that Greece had rolled out a red carpet for terrorists."In October 2003, Ta Nea interviewed the artist Alexandros Psychoulis, who was organizing an exhibition in Athens concerning the heroism of an Arab female suicide bomber who blew herself up in a Jerusalem supermarket in March 2003. The artist said 'that the title "Body Milk" brings together both female cosmetics and the human milk of an 18-year-old Palestinian girl bomber in an Israeli supermarket....A very beautiful girl, educated, in love...of an army of women in the women's space of the supermarket...the supermarket is a super female provider. If she blows herself up there, she is magnifying her existence and her act.' Ta Nea wrote that the pink lace embroidery montage displayed an Arab woman with a bomb belt, who was 'heroically obliterating an Israeli supermarket.'Violence and Threats"Until recently, violence had not been physically expressed against Jews. Earlier this year, however, Mordechai Frisis, the rabbi of Salonika, described having been the target of an attack at a train station. In the past, Jewish property has occasionally been damaged. In the 1980s, a Jewish-owned travel agency in Athens was bombed during closing hours, and so there were no victims. Also, a company that imported Israeli solar heaters was bombed."Altsech considers that although Greek Jews have substantial first-hand experience of anti-Semitism, the problem is not widely known beyond their country's borders. "Jews thrived in Greece for centuries. However, 65-67,000 of them were murdered by the Germans during the Holocaust; as high as 92 percent of the Jewish population according to some estimates. Because there are fewer than 5,000 Jews left in the country, Greek anti-Semitism received very little international attention until recently.This may be changing. After several earlier publications on the subject, in April 2004 the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) wrote to the newly elected Prime Minister, Kostas Karamanlis of the New Democrat party, that the Greek National Tourist Organization promoted the Easter ritual of 'burning [the effigy] of Judas' as a tourist attraction. Hundreds of local ceremonies carried out this ritual sometimes described as the 'Burning of the Jew.' One Greek town replaced this custom with an innovative 'Burning of the Nigger' ritual."The same letter also mentioned that Greece had dedicated the musical score of the 2004 Olympics to the leftist anti-Semitic composer, Mikis Theodorakis, who had also served as a cabinet minister in a New Democracy-led coalition government that briefly ousted Andreas Papandreou from power in the early 90s. Earlier this year, Theodorakis had publicly stated that the Jews are "the root of all evil."Altsech relates his personal experiences: "Occasionally threats and phone-calls are made to Jews, which have nothing to do with the situation in the Middle East. I was already receiving them when I was a student and had never published anything yet. In the apartment building where we lived in Athens, we had wooden paneling on the outside with the names of all the residents on it. One day in the late 1980s, someone carved with a knife 'Jews, you will die' next to our name. The late Joseph Lovinger, then Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (CJB) President, a concentration camp survivor, told me that he received such threatening phone-calls regularly and just hung up."The Jewish community has usually tried to keep a low profile. When I was studying anti-Semitism in Greece, Lovinger told me: 'Don't dig into these matters. Don't rock the boat. There is no anti-Semitism in Greece.' I said, 'Mr. Lovinger, look at the evidence in your own files; the newspaper articles, the swastikas and graffiti, the stickers that I got off the streets saying 'Out with the Foreigners' and 'Zionism is Our Misfortune.' He shrugged it off, saying that 'Anti-Semitism is when one chases you down the street with a stick to crack your skull open. You keep a low profile and you'll never get that.' I thought that it sounded like the reaction of the Jews in Germany in the early thirties. I don't think the attitude has changed enough, if at all."Anti-Semitism in the Media"Major dailies often follow a two-faced approach to Jews. Socialist newspapers, such as Avriani, Ta Nea or Ethnos, among others, have often made anti-Semitic remarks, published blatantly anti-Semitic letters from readers and, from time to time, printed editorials against anti-Semitism and xenophobia."Some more extreme media is overtly anti-Semitic. This includes a television channel Tele-Asty which has a program which often includes extreme anti-Semitic remarks about both Jews and Zionists under the pretense of defending Greek Orthodoxy and the nation. For some newspapers with small circulations, promoting anti-Semitism is a major activity. The weekly Stochos is a primary example, as is Chrysi Avghi."In Greece, one does not have to buy newspapers to read their anti-Semitic remarks. Many kiosks hang such newspapers with pegs from a wire all day while weeklies hang there for the entire week. One can thus read the front page regardless of whether or not one actually purchases the paper. Sometimes this page is blatantly anti-Semitic. Stochos has even serialized The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Consequently, one no longer has to buy the book, which is not terribly hard to find in Greek bookstores in the first place."Multiple Desecrations"Violence against Jews is also expressed through the frequent desecration of synagogues, cemeteries and monuments, including Holocaust Memorials. So are street signs like that of the Street of the Jewish Martyrs in Salonika. Swastikas and anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian slogans have been painted on such memorials, while headstones in cemeteries have been broken."In December 1999, there were graffiti on the walls of the synagogue in Chalkis. In April 2000, the Holocaust Memorial in Salonika to the 50,000 Jewish inhabitants deported and murdered during the Nazi era was desecrated. On the same day, swastikas were drawn on the walls of the Monastirioton Synagogue in the city.9On 25 May 2000, fifty tombstones in the Athens Jewish cemetery, as well as the building used for burial services, were desecrated. At the same time, anti-Semitic slogans, such as "Juden Raus" and SS symbols, appeared on the Holocaust Memorial in Athens. On the previous day, swastikas and slogans such as "Death to the Jews" had been scrawled on the walls of the houses of the late actress and Greek Minister of Culture, Melina Mercouri, and her husband, the Jewish film director Jules Dassin.10In May 2001, a Molotov cocktail was thrown outside the Larissa Synagogue. The Jewish cemetery in Trikala was desecrated that year for the fifth time since 1993. Also, the Jewish cemetery of Xanthe and the Holocaust monument in Kastoria were daubed with swastikas.11On 15 April 2002 - one day after a Holocaust Memorial service at the monument - the Holocaust Memorial in Salonika was again desecrated with red paint to suggest bloodshed. On the same day, the Jewish cemetery at Ioannina was desecrated.12In July 2002, parts of the Holocaust Memorial in Rhodes were irreversibly destroyed. It had only been officially unveiled a few weeks earlier on 23 June. The Jewish community had reported that the harassment of the workers during the construction of the monument necessitated 24-hour police protection. The Ioannina synagogue was daubed with neo-Nazi symbols and slogans in August 2003. In October of that year, the cemetery in that town was again desecrated.13 In both 2002 and 2004, the Holocaust Memorial in the northern Greek city of Drama was daubed with anti-Semitic slogans.14Says Altsech: "In Greece, one finds a great deal of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli graffiti and posters plastered in the street. Major newspapers publish anti-Semitic letters from readers. On 15 May 2002, the pro-Socialist daily, Eleftherotypia, published one saying: 'Jews today are lucky that no one intends to deprive them of the right to be called human beings, when they aren't...it's a proven fact that Jews are untrustworthy and fickle. They infiltrate societies, first playing the poor soul to generate pity and then, when the time comes, they'll grab you by the throat.'15"At the same time regular Holocaust Memorial ceremonies do take place in the presence of political personalities. The government always sends a high-ranking official, usually the Minister of Education and Religious Affairs. The Greek Orthodox Church also sends a senior clergyman. It is a fairly standard observance, which the Jewish community organizes. Here, again, one finds the two-faced character of Greek society."Pasok's Anti-SemitismAltsech comments further on the political scene: "In the past, anti-Israeli attitudes were more-or-less specific to Pasok and the smaller left-wing parties. In the early 1980s, Andreas Papandreou, Pasok's leader and Greece's Prime Minister, was fiercely anti-American. At that time, he was already publicly calling the Israelis Nazis."There were anti-Semitic texts in state-issued schoolbooks; anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli articles - nobody saw the difference - appeared in magazines. In July 1982, after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Yannis Loulis, who wrote for the daily Mesimvrini, accused the pro-Socialist press of supporting anti-Semitism. Eleftherotypia referred to 'Israeli Nazis,' Ta Nea called the Israelis 'worthy descendants of Hitler', and Ethnos ran a front page headline declaring that the Israelis had surpassed the Nazis, a motif one frequently finds in Arab countries.16"Papandreou's words led to an extreme state of insecurity among the Greek Jews and to an outcry against his statement. The next year, in an attempt to repair the damage, he declared that 'Greek Jews are an integral part of the Greek people and the government is determined to take whatever measures necessary to deal with anti-Semitic incidents.'17"That same year, however, Pasok MP, Ioannis Koutsoyannis, inundated the Greek Parliament with a flood of anti-Semitic remarks, praising the book Zionist Conspiracies, written by a notorious Greek anti-Semite, and blaming 'the Jews, the Masons, the CIA and [former Israeli Defense Minister] Moshe Dayan' for preparing and coordinating the April 1967 military coup that took place in Greece.18 These remarks were made in the presence of the Prime Minister, and the speaker was heartily applauded by his Socialist colleagues."An Athens Mayor's Prejudice"In 1986, a regular session of the Athens City Council received national - and international - attention because of comments made by the Socialist mayor, Dimitris Beis. At one point during the session, there was some noise and confusion, which the mayor described as 'havra' - an insulting term which equates noise and tumult with Jews praying in unison in the synagogue. The mayor defended his remarks, and mocked those who protested."An article in Apoghevmatini noted that at the time when Jews were being blamed for everything from forest fires to the Chernobyl meltdown, the mayor could expose his prejudice openly without concern about losing votes from a few Jewish citizens.19 New York Mayor, Ed Koch, referred to Beis' comments in his New York Post article about Greek anti-Semitism.20"In 2002, Theodoros Pangalos, a former Pasok foreign minister and EU commissioner led a protest march to the Israeli embassy. Because it was the Saturday of Passover, the embassy was closed. Pangalos then suggested that since the embassy was in Greece, it should respect the customs of its host country, and that not receiving the protest on the Sabbath of Passover was an insult to Greece.After Pasok's electoral defeat to New Democracy in 2004, the outgoing Prime Minister Simitis, accused of not having handed power over to his successor, George Papandreou, early enough to give his party a better chance at victory, was referred to as "the Jew Simitis" in a derogatory front page article of the pro-Pasok daily Avriani on 11 March.New Democracy"Under Pasok, Greece only recognized Israel de facto. In 1990, more than forty years after Israel became independent, Israel was recognized de jure, by the conservative New Democracy Mitsotakis government, which had come to power a year before. In recent years, some members of the New Democracy Party - which had been in opposition for a long time - have moved further to the right and have begun to publicly and unashamedly express and condone anti-Semitic views."One of these was MP George Karatzaferis. He was expelled from the party only because he made derogatory remarks, insinuating a homosexual relationship between Karamanlis, then leader of New Democracy in opposition, and his press secretary. Had Karatzaferis remained in the party until it came to power, he would have probably been given a prominent ministerial position. Karatzaferis now runs his own small right wing party, Laos. His party narrowly missed inclusion in the Greek Parliament in the 2004 election. In the June 2004 elections for the European parliament, the party, however, gained one seat."The New Democrats did not want to expel Karatzaferis despite his anti-Semitic remarks. Their party was gaining strength, slowly but steadily, and was looking for all possible support in order to come to power. It narrowly lost the previous parliamentary elections in 2000. Karatzaferis' many anti-Semitic comments in media he controlled, were not so relevant to them. In Greece, there is no political benefit in standing up for the 5,000 Jews. Nobody cares about them. Nor is there a public outcry against racist politicians, anti-Semitism or xenophobia."Some New Democracy members of Parliament in 2000, along with several members of the Union of Retired Army Officers, participated in a celebration with Chrysi Avghi, which uses red, white and black swastika-like runic symbols.Also in 2000, on 6 September, New Democracy MP Yakoumatos, speaking before Parliament, referred to the opposition Pasok MPs as "Judases, with [Prime Minister Costas] Simitis as the First High Priest of Judaism.""New Democracy won the Parliamentary election of 2004, and is now in government. Some of its prominent members have openly expressed anti-Semitic views in the past, and even Prime Minister-elect Kostas Karamanlis warmly received Theodorakis, whose name has been mentioned by analysts as the ruling party's likely nominee for the Presidency of the Republic of Greece."The Chania Synagogue CaseIn 1999 the reconstructed synagogue of Chania on the island of Crete was reopened. The president of the region, George Katsanevakis, a member of the small left-wing Synaspismos party, wrote a letter to the CJB in which he said that the precondition for the creation and operation of places of worship is the existence of a fair number of faithful, which does not exist in this specific case.Katsanevakis wondered: "Since, unfortunately, no Jews remain in Chania, to whom will the operation and ceremonies of the synagogue be directed? To the memorial that is empty of faithful, to the slow-thinking tourists, or to a congregation transferred from elsewhere?"The region's president added another double-faced remark to his xenophobic letter: "Of course, we reject as unsubstantiated the rumours circulating in Crete about an invasion of Zionist capital, whose objective is to upset our national conscience and identity."22The Greek Orthodox ChurchOne of the 1200 forged IDs with christian alias, here provided by Athens religious and police authorities to Eva Alhanati (alias in the ID as Evangelia Alexiou) , a Greek Jewish woman who lived in Athens during axis powers occupation.Several former prominent Church leaders are still heroic figures for Greek Jews due to their efforts to save them during the Holocaust, most notably Archbishop Damaskinos and the Metropolitan of Zakynthos.In the more recent past, however, several Metropolitans have engaged in blatantly hateful anti-Semitic propaganda. The Church's official position has been that Metropolitans are autonomous, and although the Church does not condone anti-Semitism in its ranks, it does not have the jurisdiction to suppress it either.In 2001, the weekly To Vima published comments by Archbishop Christodoulos, who blamed the Jews for being behind government's decision to abide by European Union rules opposed to stating one's religion on the new state identity cards, which have a standard format for EU member countries.As early as 1993, both the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice criticized Greece for forcing the inscription of the holder's religion on his/her identity card. The Archbishop's comments are indicative of the casual attitude the Church holds with respect to anti-Semitic sentiment even at its highest echelons.Those Who Speak OutAltsech comments that there are some who do speak out. The first of these is Panayotis Dimitras of the Helsinki Monitor, who has long researched and publicized issues relating to civil rights, including racism and anti-Semitism. Another is Nikos Dimou, a prominent Greek author, journalist and thinker. He has written many articles containing facts nobody is willing to publicly mention and confirm in Greece. He has courageously criticized the Church and Greek society, and has drawn attention to their anti-Semitism and xenophobia. It is important to recognize his courage and that of the few others like him."Most Greeks do not accept the concept of constructive criticism. The prevailing attitude is that all foreign critique is anti-Greek. As the Jewish community is small and not very vocal, the international condemnations of Greek anti-Semitism by the SWC, Anti-Defamation League and others are thus especially important."I am not sure international condemnation will change anything within Greece, but it will get the attention of Greek politicians who speak with two tongues, one for domestic and one for foreign use. They do not want to be embarrassed internationally about the country's anti-Semitism. They may then do what they can to make editors a bit more discreet about printing blatant anti-Semitic articles, which are often condoned by parties and politicians. That is why increasing international public indignation about Greek anti-Semitism is important."More on the subject:Georges Gritsis's answer to During WW2, the Germans rounded up all the Jews of Greece and transported them 3000 km to Auschwitz to be murdered. How did that make any logistical sense?Georges Gritsis's answer to Did the military junta in Greece support Israel? Or was it against Israel?History of the Jews in Greece - Wikipedia

I don’t know if this answer will be considered truly “mind-blowing”, but I think that it’s a fun bit of Israeli trivia: disambiguation is an essential skill when studying Israeli history. In plain English: for a relatively small country with a relatively brief history, Israel apparently has an unusually large number of cases where different people with the same name became famous (or just “relatively well known”) in the country. In a few of these cases, both of the people sharing one name played critical, even legendary, roles in Israeli history.Before I present a detailed list of specific cases (in one of the longest answers I have ever written on Quora), let’s reflect a little more on this whole topic of “disambiguation”.The main Wikipedia listing on human name disambiguation contains (at this point in time) more than 53,750 separate cases of names which are attached to more than one person famous enough to have their own article. Put another way, the problem of disambiguation is universal - in almost every society you will find multiple cases where different famous people share the same name.What’s worth keeping in mind, though, is that some names are reasonably more likely to be repeated. For instance, in some cultures it’s quite common for children to take the name of their parents. Thus, we’re not surprised that the disambiguation page for “George Bush” provides links to articles about two recent U.S. presidents (who are father and son), as well as to an article on George P. Bush, who is the grandson / nephew of those two American presidents.Likewise, if a last name and a first name are both relatively common within a given culture, then it’s certainly likely that many more than one person will share that combination of names (and that two or more of them will achieve some significant recognition). Indeed, that “George Bush” page also contains links to articles about a biblical scholar born 220 years ago; a deceased NASCAR driver who only competed five times during the 1952 season; and the first African-American pioneer in the State of Washington.What’s worth keeping in mind, though, is that people are unlikely to confuse that Bible scholar with either of the U.S. presidents (or with the NASCAR driver), since they lived centuries apart. Indeed, even though the Bible scholar and the western pioneer lived during the same era, it’s also unlikely that any historian would get them confused or accidentally “mix together” different pieces of their biographies, since they came from widely different backgrounds and engaged in a completely different set of activities during their lifetimes.However, disambiguation cases become more interesting when unrelated people who share the same name, alive at the same time, become well known. Furthermore, if those two individuals became famous in the same profession (or for some other similarity in their lives), it can seem like a remarkable coincidence.Given Israel’s brief history as a modern nation; its relatively small population; and the lack of a cultural tradition of naming children after their parents, the high number of “famous name matches” seems quite remarkable.Within Ashkenazi Jewish culture (I’m not so sure about other Jewish sub-groups), it’s usually frowned upon to name children after their (living) parents or other living relatives. Thus, we wouldn’t expect to find many “juniors” sharing their parent’s name in Israeli society.Of course, many Jewish children are named after deceased relatives. The best example which pops into my mind are two rabbis, one the ancestor of the other, who led the same religious movement: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (better known as the “Tzemach Tzedek” after a book he authored), who led the Chabad movement for several decades in the 1800s; and Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh leader of the Chabad movement who was among the most important Jewish spiritual leaders of the twentieth century.What all this means is that, within Israeli society, it should be relatively rare for two people, living at the same time, who share the same name to be closely related (although it’s quite possible that they may be related to the same distant ancestor).Returning to the core answer - listed below are fifteen cases of well-known (and presumably not related) Israelis (unfortunately, I could only find examples of Israeli men) who share the same name. In many of these cases, these “name twins” worked in the same field (either politics or a military career).Disambiguation: “Raphael Eitan” (רפאל איתן‎)‎The two men who shared the name “Raphael Eitan” may be Israel’s best example of disambiguation; both men are very well known and were born in the late 1920s. Both men also served at least one term in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament).Rafael "Raful" Eitan (January 11, 1929 – November 23, 2004) was the legendary tough commander in chief of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) between 1978 and 1983, during the beginning of the first Lebanon War (“Operation Peace for Galilee”). He later served in four sessions of the Knesset (11th - 14th) as a member of the right-wing Tehiya party, and later as founder and leader of the Tzomet party.Rafael "Rafi" Eitan (born November 23, 1926) is a famous former Mossad (Israeli intelligence) agent, who led the 1960 operation to capture Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. He is also known as the main Israeli handler of Jonathan Pollard during that spy affair. After retiring from intelligence work he helped found the Dor (formerly Gil) Party for pensioners’ rights, and was elected to the 17th session of the Knesset. Although the party doesn’t have any seats in the current Knesset session, he remains party leader today.Disambiguation: “Eli Cohen” (אֱלִי כוהן)The nickname “Eli” can serve as an abbreviation for several different Hebrew names, such as Eliyahu or Eliezer. In many cases, this “short name”, meaning My God, becomes the recognized first name for many men.Mention the name “Eli Cohen” to an Israeli, and one person usually comes to mind first: the Egyptian born Israeli intelligence agent Eliyahu Cohen (December 26, 1924 – May 18, 1965), who infiltrated the upper ranks of elite Syrian society until he rose to become a senior advisor to the Defense Minister. Unfortunately, he was discovered and eventually hanged in Damascus two years prior to the outbreak of the 1967 Six Day War; the information he provided played a crucial role in Israel’s decisive victory.However, there are also the three other Eli Cohens who served in the Knesset:Eliyahu Cohen (born May 29, 1949), who served in the 15th session of the Knesset for the Likud Party, and who later served as Israel’s ambassador to Japan for 4 years. He also served as a Lt. Colonel in the IDF and worked as a martial arts coach.Eli Cohen (born October 3, 1972), an accountant who serves in the current Knesset (20th session) on behalf of the centrist Kulanu Party.Eliezer Cohen (born June 18, 1934) is a former Israeli Air Force (IAF) pilot who served in the 15th (for Yisrael Beiteinu) and 16th (for the National Union) Knesset sessions.There are a couple more well-known Eli Cohens who have achieved their fame in a completely different field: managing professional football (soccer) teams.The older Eli Cohen (born January 3, 1951) is a former player who has managed at least five different Israeli teams including Bnei Yehuda, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Beitar Jerusalem, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa.The younger Eli Cohen (born April 6, 1961) helped win two championships while playing for Maccabi Haifa in the 1980s; as a manager for Hapoel Ramat Gan he led his team to win the State Cup in 2003. He later coached for at least three other teams including Hapoel Tzafririm Holon, Hapoel Ra'anana, and Hapoel Acre.Last but not least, I would be remiss if I left out noted actor and director Eli Cohen (born December 18, 1940), who is best known for directing two auto-biographical films which were written by, produced by, and starring Israeli actress Gila Almagor.Disambiguation: “Ze’ev Almog” (זאב אלמוג)In my mind, the name “Ze’ev Almog” is primarily associated with one of the worst terror attacks in Israeli history. During the Second Intifada, on October 4, 2003, a female suicide bomber murdered 21 people (and wounded 51 more) inside Haifa’s beachfront “Maxim” restaurant. Notably, the attack killed one of Israel’s most famous terror victims (together with his wife, son, and two grandchildren): Admiral Ze’ev Almog, a retired senior commander who served in the Israeli Navy. (4 other family members were among the wounded.)(Elke Weiss provides more detailed information about this terror attack, including the terrorist’s background, in an excellent answer to the question: What are some insane rationalizations for terrorism?)What’s remarkable is that there were two different Navy Admirals named Ze’ev Almog, who served their country at roughly the same time; and both of these men made truly historic contributions to Israel’s naval program.The murdered Adm. Ze’ev Almog (Sept. 12, 1932 - Oct. 4, 2003) was considered to be one of the founders of the Israeli submarine program. He was actually registered as “submariner number 4” when the program was launched in the 1960s. He served as commander of the submarines "Tanin" and “Leviathan”, and later served as the commander of the naval officers' training school for 23 years. According to an article published after the bombing, he was related to another well-known IDF officer: Major Gen. Doron Almog, who was in charge of Southern Command and later received the Israel Prize, a top civilian honor, for his work with disabled children.The other Rear Adm. Ze’ev Almog (born February 1, 1935) has an even more impressive service record. He commanded the entire Israeli Navy for six years (1979–1985); prior to this he was the commander of “Flotilla 13”, the navy’s special operations unit (i.e. Israel’s equivalent to the US Navy SEALs). As commander of a special forces unit Almog led or participated in a number of covert operations, most notably the Green Island Raid (“Bulmus 6”) and Operation Escort (which sunk two Egyptian navy ships), both in 1969. He was, according to one testimony, the first non-American officer to work with the Navy SEAL program; and many of the doctrines and strategies he put into place still guide Israeli special forces teams today.BTW, the first name “Ze’ev” means wolf in Hebrew, while the last name “Almog” means “coral”. It’s interesting two realize that two different “coral wolves” were protecting Israel’s seashore for so many decades…Disambiguation: “Ya’akov Gil” (יעקב גיל)Two men named Ya’akov Gil served in the Knesset:Rabbi Ya’akov Gil (1908 - October 22, 1990) served in the first Knesset session shortly after the state’s founding, on behalf of the General Zionists.The other Ya’akov Gil (January 17, 1931 - January 21, 2007) served in the 10th and 11th Knesset sessions for the Alignment (Israel Labor Party).Disambiguation: “Yitzhak Yitzhaki” (יצחק יצחקי)Two men named Yitzhak Yitzhaki served in the Knesset:The elder Yitzhak Yitzhaki (Oct. 11, 1902 - Sept. 22, 1955) died less than two months after being elected to serve in the third Knesset session. A leader of the leftist MaPaM party, he was a Red Army veteran; a pioneer in the 1920s “Labor Battalions” (Gedud Ha-Avodah) in pre-state Israel; and a founder, in the 1930s, of a group called the “League for Arab-Jewish Co-operation”.The younger Yitzhak Yitzhaki (Nov. 26, 1936 - Feb. 19, 1994) had very different political views from those of his predecessor. He served in the ninth session of the Knesset as a member of Shlomtzion, a party founded by Ariel Sharon. That party later merged into the Likud Party, which Sharon would one day lead as the Israeli Prime Minister. Towards the end his term in office, Yitzhaki left Likud to form his own one man party, called One Israel; he was not re-elected.BTW, if you do a Google search for this name, you will discover a third Yitzhak Yitzhaki, who happens to be a professor of Electro-Optical Engineering at Ben-Gurion University. If he ever decides to run for office (and, unlike in the U.S., Israel has an unusually large number of academics who seek public office), the number Yitzhak Yitzhakis who served in the Knesset could catch up with the number of Eli Cohens who served…Disambiguation: “Meir Cohen” (מאיר כהן)The Israelis who have shared this name include:Meir Cohen (born November 15, 1955), who served in the previous and current Knesset sessions (19th and 20th), and also served as Minister of Welfare and Social Services, on behalf of the Yesh Atid party.Meir Cohen-Avidov (February 18, 1926 - March 4, 2015), who served in four different Knesset sessions (8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th) as a Likud representative.The youngest celebrity named Meir Cohen (born June 8, 1972) who is a professional football (soccer) player.Disambiguation: “Avraham Katz” (אברהם כץ)The deceased Avraham Katz (1931 - August 13, 1986) served in the Knesset for Likud throughout three sessions (7th, 8th, and 9th).The slightly younger (and still living) Avraham Katz-Oz (born December 7, 1934) served in five separate Knesset sessions (9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th) on behalf of the Labor Party; this included two years serving as Minister of Agriculture.Among all the names on this list, this pair of men seems to hold the distinction of having between them the most terms in the Knesset (covering seven separate sessions, including one in which they served together); although one of the men named Yisrael Katz (see below) might serve more terms in office than both of them combined, if he succeeds in getting re-elected a couple more times.Disambiguation: “Shmuel Katz” (שמואל כץ)‎‎A pair of men in very different professions shared this name:Like so many others listed here, the first Shmuel Katz (December 9, 1914 - May 9, 2008) was a politician who served in the first Knesset session for the Herut party (which was the nucleus of what would become today’s Likud). Note that he was only 35 years old when he was elected to serve in parliament, and he lived almost six more decades after his one term in office.The other Shmuel Katz (August 18, 1926 – March 26, 2010) was a cartoonist, best known as the illustrator for hundreds of Hebrew language books (in particular, some classic children’s books).Disambiguation: “Ya’akov Katz” (יעקב כץ)Two former Knesset members and a journalist share this name:The first Ya'akov Katz (Dec. 28, 1906 - Dec. 21, 1967) served four terms in the Knesset (3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th sessions) on behalf of two religious parties associated with the Agudat Yisrael (ultra-Orthodox/haredi) movement: the Religious Torah Front and the Poalei Agudat Yisrael party.The second Ya'akov Katz (born Sept. 29, 1951) is also a religious politician; he also served as director of the Arutz Sheva media network and the Beit El yeshiva (religious seminary). During his IDF service he served in a special forces unit (Sayeret Shaked). He served in the 18th session of the Knesset on behalf of the right-wing National Union alliance.The youngest Yaakov Katz (born in 1979) with his own Wikipedia article is the current Editor In Chief of the Jerusalem Post newspaper.Disambiguation: “Yisrael Katz” (ישראל כץ‎‎)A pair of politicians shared this name:The elder (and deceased) Yisrael Katz (December 6, 1927 - October 29, 2010) served as Minister of Labor and Social Affairs for four years, within the first Begin government as a member of the Democratic Movement for Change; yet unlike most Israeli government ministers he never served in the Knesset.The younger (and still living) Yisrael Katz (born Sept. 21, 1955) has served in seven consecutive Knesset sessions, including the current one (14th - 20th). This Likud leader currently serves in two cabinet seats, as both the Minister of Transportation and as the Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy.Disambiguation: “David Ivry” (דוד עברי)David Ivry (born 1934) was commander of the Israeli Air Force, and later ambassador to the United States and director of the National Security Council. He currently is employed as president of Boeing Israel.He definitely shouldn’t be confused with David Ha'ivri (born in 1967), a far-right politician who once was an activist in the (now banned) Kach and Kahane Chai movements. Ironically, he changed his name from David Axelrod to this new Hebrew name; he shared that former name with another well known person (the former campaign strategist for President Barack Obama).Disambiguation: “Michael Zohar” (מיכאל זהר)Listing his pair is a bit of a stretch, since neither of these men is actually known by the exact name “Michael Zohar”. Still worth noting, though, that:Miki Zohar (born March 28, 1980) serves in the current Knesset session (20th) on behalf of Likud.Michael Bar-Zohar (born January 30, 1938), on the other hand, served two non-consecutive terms (10th and 12th) in the Knesset for the Labor Party.Disambiguation: “Moshe Levy” (משה לוי‎‎)The set of four different Israeli men who share this name form an eclectic group.The best known Moshe Levi (1936–2008) was a former Chief of Staff (top commander) of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). His popular nickname Moshe veChetzi (“Moshe and a half”) referred to his extreme height. His parents were Iraqi refugees who made aliyah to Tel Aviv more than a decade prior to Israel’s creation.Another Moshe Levy is well known because of his IDF experiences. He is among a handful of sailors who survived the sinking of the Israeli destroyer Eilat during the 1967 Six-Day War. His tale of survival can be found in the autobiography The 48th Soul.A third Moshe Levy (born 1952) is a champion para-olympic athlete, who has won a total of nine medals (including six gold medals) in either swimming and basketball.The fourth Moshe Levy (born 1927) is a professor emeritus of chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science , who is among the world’s leading experts in the areas of polymers and solar energy.Disambiguation: “Lev Leviev”Two Soviet/Russian emigres, who both became successful businessmen, share this name.The much better known Lev A. Leviev (born July 30, 1956) left Uzbekistan with his family when he was just 15 years old; today he is a diamond tycoon with a net worth of roughly $1.1 billion. He is a major support of Chabad and other religious Jewish causes.The younger Lev B. Leviev (born June 22, 1984) is an Internet entrepreneur who launched Russia's largest social network VK.com. With a net worth of “only” $220 million, he has a way to go before he becomes as rich as… well, that other Lev Leviev.Disambiguation: “Ernst Bergmann”I saved, for last on my list, what is probably the most remarkable case of two men who lived at the same time and shared the same name. However, this case is also a bit of a stretch for this list, since only one of these men is Israeli.The Israeli Ernst D. Bergmann (1903 - April 6, 1975) was a physicist and chemist who published more than 500 peer reviewed research papers during his lifetime. He is best remembered as the first chairman of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC); as his Wikipedia article notes, he is widely considered to be “the father of the Israeli nuclear program.”The other well known Ernst Bergmann (August 7, 1881 - April 16, 1945) was certainly not Israeli or Jewish. Indeed, his fame (or in this case, infamy) came from helping to build the Third Reich as one of the leading German academics who supported the Nazi Party. A philosopher by training, Bergmann joined the party in 1930, and was considered one of its intellectual stars. As his Wikipedia article notes, he is remembered for describing Adolf Hitler as “the new messiah”.This is a true “disambiguation miracle”: a Jewish hero who may have done more than almost any other person to protect Israel (by providing it with the ultimate deterrent weapon) shared his name with an anti-Semitic villain who played a lead role in instigating history’s greatest massacre of Jews. Very ironic indeed…Israeli scientist Ernst Bergmann, speaking at the opening of the "Atoms for Peace" exhibition in Israel in 1956.