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South African-born Rabbi Selwyn Franklin, now an Australian-Israeli citizen, found himself in the middle of a failed planned terror attack when visiting Athens recently with his wife Eileen.

Rabbi Franklin is a former spiritual leader of Sydney’s Central Synagogue.

He tells J-Wire of his recent experience in the Greek capital.

“Last Sunday, Eileen and I went for a few days break to Athens.

We felt relatively secure as Israel and Greece closely cooperate on Security and Economic issues. While it is quite common for me to wear a cap in public areas when travelling in Europe, I was most comfortable wearing my kippa outdoors in Athens.

Little did I realise that I could have been a marked man as I learnt the next day from The Jerusalem Post that two terrorists had been apprehended in Athens.

Chabad Athens has daily services and a fine restaurant. We went to dinner there on Monday night and innocently drove up, parked and left afterwards back to our hotel. The next night on Tuesday, I went to attend services as I am saying Kaddish for my late mother, who passed away six months ago. When I left Chabad, I found a team of TV cameras and reporters right outside trying to interview some people.

I studiously avoided them, but after Shacharit the next morning, they were there again, and they innocently asked me some questions. Before I knew it, I realised that I was having a formal interview with a few teams of reporters, and indeed my interview appeared that day on Greek TV. I did agree to appear on a Greek TV talk show, “Open Beyond” the next morning (Thursday) at 6am.

During Wednesday, we discovered that an Iranian plot to gas the Chabad House had been uncovered by the Greek Security establishment with close assistance from Mossad.

Having been highly visible in my attempt to park as close to the Chabad House as possible given the convoluted lanes in the centre city of Athens, my wife Eileen and I felt extremely vulnerable.

We decided that we wouldn’t wait until the next day, Thursday, to fly out but to rebook our tickets for that evening instead. I did not call the reporter who had arranged the talk show appearance to cancel until we had gone through security and passport control at Athens International Airport.

I must say that despite the threat of terrorism in Israel, I feel infinitely safer there than in most parts of the world as the ability of the Jewish State to defend its citizens is legendary.