Most Israelis believe that the traumatic events of October 7, 2023, created a chasm in the nation’s story.
The pre-Oct. 7 world, with its divisions and pressing concerns, has for the moment become remote; it is the problems facing the nation post-Oct. 7 that are now of supreme importance and in urgent need of resolution.
Writers Dan Senor and Saul Singer (joint authors of the iconic 2009 volume Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle) wrote their new book, The Genius of Israel, well before Oct. 7; it went to press in the summer of 2023. Their intention was to scrutinize Israel’s development, both socially and politically, in an effort to identify the factors that have led to the nation’s success in so many areas.
Their work, a New York Times bestseller, is of all the greater value because they are dealing with fundamental aspects of Israeli society deeply embedded within the nation.
As they undertook their work, the bitter political battle in Israel over judicial independence was the big issue of the day. CBS News reported that “You can’t understand this war without understanding Israel, and this book helps people do that”; and The Wall Street Journal opined that its “reportage sheds light on a larger question: How is a country so incurably divided also a country so resolutely united?”
Senor and Singer draw on past political conflicts to demonstrate that intense political controversy has had little, if any, effect on the underlying unity of the Israeli people or the nation’s continued growth and development. They assert that certain factors innate to Israeli society consistently trump widely differing political convictions and some great social diversities. At one point in the book, they specify some of them in order to illustrate the stresses they impose on society as a whole – the gap between the Jews from the East and the Jews from the West; the hawks and the doves; the secularists of Tel Aviv and the haredim (ultra-Orthodox) of Bnei Brak; Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs.
No wonder the authors refer to “a divided nation” in their title, and one might wonder how a nation so internally fragmented can possibly hold together. Yet their research reveals a quite unexpected picture as they seek to identify what the unifying factors are.
They point to the remarkable results recorded in the World Happiness Report over the past few years. This is an annual survey produced in partnership with Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre (WRC), the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the WHR’s editorial board. In 2021 Israel ranked among the top 15 out of over 150 countries.
“By the 2022 report,” write Senor and Singer, “Israel had jumped to ninth place. Then, in the 2023 report, Israel jumped another five spots, to fourth in the world. While most countries’ ranking stayed steady year after year, Israel – from a starting point that was already at a high level – rose 10 places in three years.”
But that was pre-Oct. 7.
The trauma of Hamas’s massacre of 1,200 innocent civilians and the capture of over 200 hostages; the subsequent call-up of reservists; Israel’s invasion of Gaza; the widespread upsurge in antisemitism worldwide; and the pressure on Israel from every quarter, whether friend or foe, to desist attacking Hamas and to sue for a ceasefire – all this, surely, will have affected Israelis’ contentment and feelings of happiness with their lives?
Not so. Despite entering its fifth month of war in Gaza, in the 2024 World Happiness Report Israel was ranked as the world’s fifth-happiest country, dropping only one place from last year.
Senor and Singer explain that Gallup conceived “happiness” as a general feeling of contentment with life. They explain that the questionnaire read: “Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you, and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?” Israelis, they note, situated themselves higher up the ladder of “the best possible life” than almost any other country in the world.
THE FACT that Israel has more or less held its position despite Oct. 7 seems to indicate that Senor and Singer have hit upon some fundamental truth about the nation.
They note that Jewish people have been complaining from the moment they became a people – all the way from their first days after the exodus from Egypt. Modern Israelis, they observe, complain no less.
“Israelis, notoriously,” they write, “have no problem telling you how they really feel, without sugarcoating. Yet, when asked to reflect on their lives, they express high levels of personal satisfaction. Why?”
The authors proceed to tease out the factors that lead to this unexpected finding. One of the answers is the level of optimism that exists among Israelis.
In a separate worldwide survey, people were asked whether they thought their children would be better off financially than their parents. Most answered, “worse off.” Of all the countries surveyed, Israelis were the least pessimistic. What is more, in almost all the other countries the percentage answering “worse off” grew to record highs from 2019-2022. Nevertheless, in Israel, the number of pessimists dropped from an already low number to an even lower one.
At one point, the authors say that when Israelis are asked why they rank so high on happiness and optimism ratings, they often have to think a bit. The most common explanation is: “You’re not alone.” Senor and Singer proceed to explore the realities that give rise to this feeling.
A good starting point, they found, was school.
“School plays a much larger role in Israel than just the education of children,” they write. “It has a clear function: to embody the value of the group, not just the individual, in Israeli society. Israelis start learning at an early age that “It’s not all about you.” They are part of something larger than themselves.
This group socialization doesn’t just happen in school. They identify it in Israel’s Scout movement, and most intensively in the two-year military service that all young people – with the exception of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, which is now being reversed – have to undertake. Miluim (military service) not only inspires a sense of national pride and unity in the younger generation, but it also teaches cooperation, interdependence, and self-confidence – and fosters lasting comradeships that bind the generations together.
WITHOUT REALIZING how soon their observation was to be proved yet again, Senor and Singer asserted that Israelis, constantly warding off enemies intent upon the nation’s destruction, are imbued with a sense of common purpose and interdependence.
“To know that your very existence is at stake,” the authors write, “focuses the mind.”
Expanding on this theme, Senor and Singer write: ”In Israel, the military is not a “them,” it’s an “us.” The army isn’t separate from the people, it is the people – a concept known as the ‘people’s army.’
“It may be the only military in the world that sees its social role as such an integral part of its mission, alongside its central mission of defending the country.”
The Genius of Israel is highly readable, replete with stories illustrating its major themes, but it is concerned more with mainstream Israeli society than with the whole complex entity. The authors do discuss how two fringe groups – Israeli Arabs and the haredim – can be part of the societal success story, but the issue is peripheral to their main theme.
For all its day-to-day divisions and struggles, the authors conclude, Israeli society provides more of what humans really need – a sense of connection, belonging, and belief in the future. A way to be both modern and traditional; religious and secular; embrace technological change and build tight families; celebrate individualism, yet foster a culture that embodies the concept of service to the larger community and the world.
Writing for the Jewish Journal, author and editor Judy Gruen asked Saul Singer whether he and his co-author would have written any differently had they been writing post-Oct 7. Would it have changed any of their perspectives?
“Despite the trauma and unspeakable losses,” she wrote, “Singer and Senor firmly maintain their convictions about Israeli resilience.
“Singer noted that a recent poll showed that 96 percent of Israeli Jews agreed that Hamas must be toppled in Gaza, and more than half of Israeli Arabs either “strongly” or “moderately” agreed.
“This is quite striking,” Singer said. “You can’t find 96 percent of Israeli Jews to agree on anything.”
The authors are convinced, drawing on historical precedent, that Israeli society can weather any storm and bounce back.
That is what they mean by “surprising resilience” in the title. The Genius of Israel provides reasons for believing that the Gaza war will prove no exception.
“Israeli society is like a very strong rubber band,” they write. “However stretched it becomes, there are strong forces pulling it back together.”
- THE GENIUS OF ISRAEL: THE SURPRISING RESILIENCE OF A DIVIDED NATION IN A TURBULENT WORLD
- By Dan Senor and Saul Singer
- Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster
- 328 pages; $24