When about Moses Elisaf nominated for mayor in the 2019 municipal elections. city ​​of Ioannina, many were quick to predict that he was “out of luck”. It’s not that he wasn’t a brilliant scientist, a professor of medicine at the University of Ioannina, and a “good man” who helped patients as preached at the time, but yes, he was Jewish too. “Are you going to get a Jewish mayor?” then his opponents said to get answers from his supporters, like “well, when you were sick, you went to him to treat you, now you are afraid that he will not become mayor?”.

They also spread the word that Elisaf was a man from foreign embassies, that “Israel will bring us here,” and that his co-candidate, in his last TV interview before the opening of the ballot box, appeared with an icon of the Virgin Mary. (!), in motion with obvious symbolism.

Despite all this and more, citizens have “turned their ears to the sirens of intolerance” such as commented on 02/03/2020 in “K”and they elected the first “Jewish mayor” in Greece, the news of this spread all over the world.

The mayor of Ioannina passed away yesterday at the age of 68.

Moses Elisaf was elected mayor under the flag of extroversion in a city with a cosmopolitan past. He tried to present this aura as a tourist product at the international level for the benefit of the city. He traveled all over the world claiming Ioannina with its Ottoman monuments, the art of silver and jewelry making, the imprints of the centuries-old coexistence of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Armenians, incomparable natural beauties, a place on the tourist map of the world. with the revealing fact that tourists from Israel are flooding the neighboring Zagorohorie.

And he, perhaps, did not have time to complete his work, which included, among other things, the large projects that had begun (the old university, Belissario’s camp, etc.), which he hoped to take up in a second term. However, he leaves a legacy to his beloved city, as a native, a highly moral scientist, a prominent figure in the local society and a member of the tortured community, an Israeli, whom he saw with mental pain. vanishes year after year, “an open window to the world” Elisaf passed away at the age of 68, leaving Janina society, the university community and the Jewish world in grief.

As a sign of mourning, the municipality has decided to cancel the planned events to liberate the city and, according to information, President of the Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis may attend his funeral tomorrow at 13:00.