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 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.”

Gordis was able to get his own personal “Israel of yesteryear” fix at the sports arena in Jerusalem where he was administered the vaccine: “[A]s I looked at the eyes of other people waiting, their faces hidden behind their masks, I could tell that I was not the only one overwhelmed by a profound sense of gratitude for being part of this country.” The old Israel was also embodied by the “small army of nurses and medical techs injecting one person after another with utter efficiency.”