By International Desk :On the first day of the new year, Bloomberg ran an opinion article by Daniel Gordis - senior vice president at Jerusalem's Shalem College - titled "Vaccination Miracle Brings Israel Back to Its Roots."The "miracle" in question refers to Israel's aggressive coronavirus vaccination drive, thanks to which it currently leads the world in per-capita vaccinations. And while Israel's literal "roots" lie in the uprooting and.
Israel Is Refusing To Give Palestinians COVID-19 Vaccines 17/01/2021
In the first day of the new year,
Bloomberg ran an opinion article by Daniel Gordis, senior vice president at Jerusalem’s Shalem College, titled ‘Vaccination Miracle Brings Israel Back to Its Roots’.
The “miracle” in question refers to Israel’s aggressive coronavirus vaccination drive, thanks to which it currently leads the world in per-capita vaccinations. And while Israel’s literal “roots” lie in the uprooting and slaughter of Palestinians, Gordis prefers a more mythological version of the Israeli past: “early socialist roots” that cultivated a “sense of social cohesion [and] shared destiny,” a nation that saw itself “as a family” and that knew “how to come together when facing a mortal enemy.”
Littman Library of Jewish Civilization; 368 pages, $46.85)
Israel, the Jewish people, and Jewish thinkers have always been caught in the struggle between universalism and particularism. Theodore Herzl envisaged Jewish sovereignty as a way for Jews to become “normal”, allowing them to take a seat among the nations of the world. Yet many Zionists are more like Yeshayahu Leibovitz, who valued sovereignty simply because it freed him from subordination to goyim. Herzl wanted Jews to become part of the larger world; Leibovitz wanted to stay away. The Tanakh, too, suffers from this dialectic: Jews have a universal mission in the world “to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth” (Gen. 12:3), but also are “a people who dwells apart” (Numb. 23:9).