| Abstract: | The article begins by analyzing the historical process that brought many Europeans to question the natural framework of their common political existence: the nation and its secular contrivance, the state. The nation appears as the ultimate casualty of European nationalism, and its “crisis of identity” has further deepened in the last few years with the acceleration of European integration. The state appears less and less as the natural locus of political authority, and, in a continent where particularities are tending to diminish, a very different sense of affiliation has been emerging: the inclination to embrace “global humanism” which has no correlation with the conventional framework of representative government. Israel offers an appropriate counterproof to the tribulations of the European fading sense of nationhood. The article considers the distinctive character of Israel among modern nation-states in light of the classical definitions of the nation, in particular with regard to the role of religion and its relation to the political institutions. |
