Not a tribe, not a family. A democracy
At the beginning of his article, “Think of Greeks as a tribe, not of Greece as a civilization state” (Ekathimerini, 31/8/23), George Monastiriakos states that Greece has existed for many years as a “civilized state.”
This is a problematic statement. The vague term “civilized state” was coined by the American political science researcher Lucian Pye in 1990 regarding China. Over the years, Turkey, Egypt, India and Russia have also been defined that way, denying liberalism and civil rights. Does Greece really want to join this list?
Monastiriakos takes it even further: He suggests that the Greeks should not be satisfied with the civilization’s state and see themselves as a tribe and even a family. This is mainly to make it easier for the descendants of Greeks in diaspora to obtain Greek citizenship and enable Greece to protect Greeks anywhere in the world (from what?).
Monastiriakos offers Greece the model of Israel. In his opinion, there is a lot of similarity between the two countries, especially in the relations between Israel and its large diaspora. As a permanent visitor to this wonderful country, I do not consider myself qualified to advise Greece’s citizens on what model they want. Still, as an Israeli, I’m convinced that this comparison is based on a misunderstanding of the Jewish and Israeli narratives, whereas the desire to adopt the Israeli model is a bitter mistake.
Although Monastiriakos mentions the historical Greek diaspora, his proposed model refers to the modern diaspora. The Jewish diaspora has been entirely different from it. Since 70 AD, the Jews had neither a state nor a political or spiritual center. Exile was their only existence, physically and ideologically. In this way of life, they did not see themselves as a tribe but as a people. An extraordinary phenomenon by all accounts: a people without a state.
The only thing that connected all the Jewish communities scattered around the world was the religious book of laws, Halachah. Religious principles such as kosher, circumcision, and many other rituals and imperatives defined the Jews. They preserved their existence, distinguishing them from the environment. This differentiation was met with suspicion and hatred everywhere, and Jews suffered persecution and exclusion.
The establishment of the State of Israel on the land of the historical biblical homeland (a process very different from all nation-state development) was intended to end this anomaly. The founding fathers sought to establish a modern sovereign state whose door would be open to every Jew, regardless of who they were, offering them home and refuge.
For this purpose, the young country legislated a particular law, the “Law of Return.” As trustworthy and moral as this law was in the early years, especially after the Holocaust, it caused quite a few problems. In many countries, Jews who are almost automatically entitled to Israeli citizenship, are accused of double loyalty. Even worse than that, the only criterion determining who is eligible to enter Israel is whether the citizenship candidate is Jewish. But who is actually a Jew? Only those whose mothers are Jewish, according to Halachah, or also those who have lived as Jews for generations? This question ignited a stormy and destructive debate between secular and religious people in Israel and between Israel and Jews worldwide.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Ethiopia and over half a million immigrants from the former Soviet Union, whose Jewishness was not recognized by the religious establishment, suffer from discrimination in many areas of life (mainly their right to marry and start a family is impaired), and war refugees from Ukraine who failed to prove their Jewishness were not allowed to enter the country’s borders this year. Beyond all this, the Arab citizens of Israel – Christians, Druze and Muslims – feel like second-class citizens because of the Law of Return.
Despite all these difficulties, Israel managed to maintain a fragile balance between its democratic spirit – committed to civil equality and human rights – and its definition and essence as the state of all Jews. And here, precisely now when the Jews of the world are no longer persecuted and the State of Israel thrives, the balance has been broken. Political groups, including a large part of the government, openly call for “Jewish supremacy.”
The Knesset (the Israeli parliament) promotes laws emphasizing Jewish supremacy and violating civil rights. The rift within the different Jewish communities in Israel deepens, and the relations between the State of Israel and the diaspora are severely damaged. This is especially true among the liberal communities in the United States. A vast public, anxious for Israeli democracy and threatened by the rise of nationalist-religious extremism, has been protesting weekly for more than six months and encounters wild incitement.
Monastiriakos hence admires a model that does more harm than benefit. It tears society apart and strengthens separatist, nationalist, and racist elements that sow hatred. Will Greece, a nation-state that has known many political upheavals but is rightly proud of its democratic heritage and social solidarity, choose to adopt this complicated model, which might drag it into unnecessary internal struggles and expose Greeks who emigrated to other countries to a new and problematic situation? Given the rise of nationalism and racism around the world, I believe that this is the last thing Greece needs.
Avirama Golan is a writer and journalist who divides her time between Israel and Greece.
