The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World

by Dan Senor

Some countries excel in fostering happiness, but not in reducing despair. Israel is exceptional in both. It is among the happiest and most optimistic countries in the world, while also having the lowest rate of deaths of despair among OECD members. At the same time, Israel’s life expectancy is high, and a high birth rate ensures that Israel would remain young and keep growing, while the rest of the wealthy democracies are aging and shrinking. Something extraordinary is happening in Israeli society.

According to a Boston Globe article, “senior citizens [in the U.S.] live in nursing homes where they mainly see other very old people, while new retirees now often buy condos in age-segregated communities…. Adolescents, who in a previous era might have spent significant time around adults while farming, apprenticing, or helping with the family business, spend their after-school hours on social media, talking mostly to one another.” And in contrast to the intergenerational relationships that are a staple of Israeli life, especially each week over Shabbat, “it is possible, today, for a middle-aged [American] office worker to go to sleep on a Friday having interacted all week with not one person more than a decade older or younger.”

The great leaders tell the story of the group, but the greatest of leaders, Moses, taught the group to become a nation of storytellers. —Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

Compared to the elite education funnel that acts as a societal sorting system in other countries, the IDF is a truly merit-based system that is neither gamed by wealth and power nor socially engineered to advance designated underrepresented demographics.