"Mesic dared to refer to members of the Zagreb Jewish Municipality who were barely saved from Nazi persecution as Nazis! This is an insult for any Jew in any part of the world and shows not only lack of knowledge about the living but disrespect for the millions of the dead," the Zagreb Jewish Municipality said in a statement.
Commenting on the recently cancelled contract with Rabbi Kotel Da-Don, which Mesic had criticised, the Jewish Municipality said that contracts with the rabbi were signed at his request, every time for a period of one year, and that the contract was not renewed, not because of the rabbi's religiousness, as claimed by President Mesic, but because of "his wrongly applied religiousness which considerably differs from the tradition of the Zagreb Jews".
The Jewish Municipality wonders what has prompted President Mesic to comment on the work of its lawfully elected leadership and accuse it of planning to get rid of the rabbi because of financial interests and plans to manage the community's property.
"Those are unproven and shameful accusations and those making them should answer for them before a court of law," reads the statement signed by the head of the Municipality's public relations department, Zora Dirnbach.
Commenting on a news conference held by the Jewish Municipality, President Mesic said yesterday that a group of members of the Jewish Municipality caused problems because of financial interests and plans to freely manage the Municipality's property, in which they would have been prevented by the rabbi. President Mesic said that since the group objected that the rabbi "is religious and writes books", there was a possibility that applicants for the post of rabbi might be required not to be religious and write books.
He also said that it would not be good to "expel the rabbi" while he (Mesic) was president of the state and recalled that the last rabbi in Croatia was killed during World War II. He said he hoped that the Jewish Municipality would be able to overcome the conflict so as not to harm Croatia's good relations with Israel and the Jewish World Congress.
Jutarnji List daily quoted Mesic as saying that a group of members of the Jewish Municipality was behaving like Nazis in World War II. "They want to expel the rabbi from Croatia in the same way as Jews were forced into concentration camps at the time," the daily quoted Mesic as saying.