Jewish group won't lift travel warning to Greece

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A Jewish human rights group said it would not lift a travel advisory to Greece unless the new government takes steps to condemn what it called "anti-Semitic expression."

"Today, there is no country in Europe that matches the intensity of anti-Semitic invective in Greece," said a letter Monday from the Simon Wiesenthal Center to Greece's new premier, Costas Caramanlis.

The Los Angeles-based center issued the travel advisory in December after a number of incidents, including the desecration of Jewish cemeteries and Holocaust memorials and an art exhibit in an Athens gallery that it said "glorifies" suicide bombers.

The center also cited remarks by prominent Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis, who called Jews "the root of evil."