Kifisia, Athens. Beneath an Athenian sky veering between sudden bursts of rain and unbearable humidity, with meringue-like clouds on the horizon, stood a boy. Dinosaur T-shirt, blue sandals, a pencil case in his hand bearing a name: Koren.
He was a little shy. When I asked how he was doing, he did not answer. He turned his head, rubbed his eye. He had other things on his mind. It was his first day at a Greek kindergarten, just days after arriving in his new country with his mother, Elian, his father, Yariv, and his little sister, Mili.
Protests in Athens
(Photo: Louiza Vradi/Reuters)
When he entered the kindergarten, Koren caught sight of a neat row of ride-on toys out of the corner of his eye and sprinted for the swing. “Kalimera,” a well-groomed teacher passing by said in a warm voice.
“Not like back home, where they wake up ready for bushido,” Yariv whispered.
That was September 2022. Four years have passed. Koren is now 7. He reads and speaks Greek, accent and all. He barely remembers his previous life, in that country — what was it called again? And when the family comes to Israel once a year to visit his grandparents and he encounters war, it does not take long before he asks when they are going back.
“That’s it. Greece is home for him now,” Elian says with a laugh.
A land of wild beaches and a thousand-sun sunsets
Ahead of Israel’s previous election, photographer Avigail Uzi and I set out on a journey through cities, villages frozen in time and distant islands: Athens, Evia, Salamina, Paros.
We went to meet the Israelis who had chosen a land of wild beaches and sunsets blazing with a thousand suns, leaving behind a homeland marked by a high cost of living, toxic politics, a government that was about to take office and wreak havoc, and a disaster looming just beyond the border.
Some of the relocation families we met could have been described as migration pioneers. The Geron-Etzion family, for example, was the only Israeli family in Kifisia, a green, well-kept neighborhood beneath a chain of mountains carrying the shadow of ancient Greece.
Today, Elian says, she cannot walk downstairs without running into three Israelis. Dozens of Israeli expats now live in the neighborhood, with more arriving every summer. There is an Israeli cafe and even an Israeli supermarket, Bamba and all.
When they first arrived and she wanted to attend Chabad events in the city, Elian recalls, there may have been 10 participants. Today, if you do not register in time, there is no room.
And Koren? Back then, he was the only Israeli in his kindergarten. His sister Mili, who is entering her final year of kindergarten, will study with seven other Israelis in a class of about 20 children. Hebrew dominates.
‘We’re not going home without a house in Greece’
A real estate advertisement at Athens International Airport aimed at Israelis, declaring, “We’re not going home without a house in Greece,” sparked anger among Greeks who already blame Israelis for driving up property prices and making rents increasingly unaffordable.
Yaki Rotem, 75, who lives with his wife in the village of Terovo in northwestern Greece on six dunams of land with horses, goats and homemade cheeses, told me this week about a response he received after posting online that he was looking for a house in the village for a friend.
“What, don’t you have anywhere to live? Leave us alone,” one local replied.
“It wasn’t pleasant,” Rotem says. “I thought, what the hell does he want? But I understand it wasn’t personal against me.”
In Greece, there are no dramas
That journey through Greece ahead of the 2022 election was sad. Unsettling. Listening to those who had chosen to buy a one-way ticket, you could hear, distilled, everything they believed was wrong with us, broken in us, in us and in our land — from endless wars to people pushing full shopping carts into the “10 items or fewer” line.
Today, Elian admits it can be a little boring here. In Greece, there are no dramas. Greeks like one day to resemble the next. Israelis, after all, have become addicted to drama.
Her friends often tell her they escaped in time — meaning before October 2023 and before the wars that followed. You can argue over the word “escaped,” but in principle, her friends are probably right.
Still, when they say it, Elian detects a certain tone — how to put it — half anger. And the look in their eyes, she says, changes with every passing year. A look that seems to say: What do you know about life? Do you even understand what we have been through here in Israel? You couldn’t.
The look in the eyes of our country has changed too. Another election is approaching and the vibe coming from Israel is: Don’t come. Don’t interfere. And certainly do not expect anyone to accommodate you at someone else’s expense.
Anyone who does not carry the burden of life here and will not pay the price for the decisions made at the ballot box should not interfere, one opinion piece declared last weekend.
“What do you mean, we don’t pay the price? We are Israelis and Jews,” says Ayelet, an Israeli living with her family in Athens. “You don’t disconnect. You have family, you have friends in Israel. You are connected to Israel and you worry about its existence because things are being run by amateurs. Other countries allow citizens to vote at consulates. And the fact that we insist on flying to Israel to vote, after fighting to remain on the voter rolls, shows involvement, commitment and concern.”
At least 80% of the Israelis she knows in Greece, Ayelet estimates, intend to travel to Israel to vote.
Elian will not be one of them. She is not sure she can. The last time she visited Israel, authorities refused to renew her ID card. And in any case, airfare on Election Day has soared amid the rush for tickets.
“It feels like they don’t want us to come,” Elian concludes. “In general, they make us feel like we no longer belong because we chose to leave. But I’m not surprised. Nothing can surprise me anymore. Politics has taken over everything.”