A Greek city council has been forced to apologise after it requested that the Star of David be removed from a commemoration stone due to be unveiled in a Shoah memorial ceremony.

Last Sunday, May 17, was meant to be a day of remembrance for the 1,484 Jews of Kavala who were deported and killed by the Nazis.

However, the Friday before, the mayor of Kavala had asked Greece’s Central Board of Jewish Communities to erase the Magen David from the long-planned memorial stone.

The Central Board of Jewish Communities (Kise) in Greece rejected the request and said the decision was “unacceptable, immoral and insulting".

The council’s decision was condemned by Jewish groups around the world including the ADL and the AJC, as well as the Greek government and all Greek political parties, except the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn.

About 100 people went on a protest march through the city on Sunday, some wearing Stars of David.

According to newspaper Kathimerini, mayor Dimitra Tsanaka apologised for the request, which she attributed to a “huge misunderstanding”. She said that the event would go ahead on a date to be decided on with Kise — likely to be June 7.