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Why Are Israelis So Happy?

(Tablet) Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy - Despite constantly facing vicious enemies and enduring a year and a half of sustained fighting and funerals, Israel ranks in the top 10 countries with the highest levels of happiness, according to the 2025 World Happiness Report. In the final months of 2024, Israel witnessed a 10% increase in births. How come? On April 12, 96% of Israeli Jews will participate in the oldest ongoing ritual in the Western world: the Passover Seder, celebrating the exodus from Egypt three millennia ago. Seders are often hours long, ritualized re-creations of the flight from Egypt, a reflection of how Jews live inside their history. Prayers, songs, food, and other rituals invite Jews to see themselves as having been personally redeemed. Most optimists are mission-driven. Feeling a sense of belonging, they progress confidently toward worthy goals. As the best-selling British historian Paul Johnson observed, "No people has ever insisted more firmly than the Jews that history has a purpose and humanity a destiny." Cherishing family, community, country, and history shapes their faith in the future. Israelis feel they are part of Israel's story and the Jewish story, that of a proud people trying to do better in the world while also bettering it. Israeli schools repeatedly assign students shorashim, "roots," projects. These family-tree explorations, even in high school, usually culminate in evenings celebrating parents' or grandparents' differing ethnic origins, cuisines, and Zionist journeys, propelling everyone forward together. With so much to live for, Israelis know what they are willing to die for, too. On the eve of battle, many soldiers write goodbye letters to be read in case they die. Having buried more than 1,000 soldiers since Oct. 7, Israelis have cherished these messages by fallen soldiers affirming their motivation to fight and their willingness to sacrifice everything for this country that imbued them, as individuals, with a particular identity - past, present, and future. In the heartbreaking letters, the soldiers, including reservists, who volunteered for combat duty, affirm their mission to defend Israel and the world against Hamas, Hizbullah, and the terrorist scourge. In the Gulag, prisoners with robust identities, national and/or religious, were the strongest partners in the daily struggle against Soviet jailers. Those connected to communities awaiting them back home felt accountable and saw their actions as part of a historical chain. Group identity doesn't compromise our freedom; it enhances our journey, filling our free lives with the sounds of others, inspired by the ideas of our ancestors. A healthy commitment to community, connectedness, and history anchors us. It motivates us to defend ourselves when necessary, while inspiring us always to build a better world. That's the essence of most Israelis' Zionism, which many just call patriotism. And that's the essence of the Passover Seder message, too. Natan Sharansky is a former political prisoner in the Soviet Union, former minister in Israeli governments, and former Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel. Gil Troy, a Distinguished Scholar of North American History at McGill University, is a Senior Fellow in Zionist Thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute.
2025-04-10 00:00:00
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