Why Israel is the world's happiest country, David Goldman in First Things who formerly wrote as the anonymous Spengler.
If any of you are depressed, morose, despondent, pessimistic, and glum, I have a cost-effective solution. For the price of a dozen sessions with a medicore therapist, you can get on a plane and go to Israel. That will cheer you up. Trust me. Insecurity doesn’t make you unhappy. This life isn’t secure. Shut yourself up in a cave ten miles under the earth with all the distilled water and freeze-dried food you can hoard, equip it with an intensive care unit and a dozen physicians… you still are going to die. Being alive is a very insecure condition as the probability of becoming dead at some future point is — let me check the chart — 100%. Care will slip in through the keyhole, no matter how secure you try to be. But the Israelis have something better than security. They have faith. That’s true even of secular Israelis, for to be an Israeli is a statement of faith.
And that is why Israel is the happiest country in the world. Last year I made this argument in a Spengler essay:
“In a world given over to morbidity, the state of Israel still teaches the world love of life, not in the trivial sense of joie de vivre, but rather as a solemn celebration of life. In another location, I argued, “It’s easy for the Jews to talk about delighting in life. They are quite sure that they are eternal, while other peoples tremble at the prospect impending extinction. It is not their individual lives that the Jews find so pleasant, but rather the notion of a covenantal life that proceeds uninterrupted through the generations.” Still, it is remarkable to observe by what wide a margin the Israelis win the global happiness sweepstakes.