Thursday, April 10, 2025
From Ian:
Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy: Why Are Israelis So Happy?
Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy: Why Are Israelis So Happy?
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?Seth Mandel: The Jews of Hollywood Are Finding Their Voice
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.
Hollywood has a consistent modern track record of ignoring Jewish concerns unless those concerns are expressed publicly and with some force.Isabel Oakeshott: What my stupid accident in Tel Aviv reveals about truly world class healthcare
To take one recent example: There was a notable lack of activist pins at last month’s Oscars despite the post-Oct. 7 trend of film and television stars wearing an intifada-inspired anti-Zionist pin at award ceremonies. Those same stars freed their lapels this time. The reason: Many of their Jewish colleagues and peers in Hollywood properly called them out.
The Brigade, a group of about 700 Hollywood creatives, wrote a scathing letter to Artists4Ceasefire, the organization that took as its emblem a bloody red hand signifying a moment during the Second Intifada when a Palestinian man murdered an Israeli Jew, defiled his body, and held up his bloody hands to a cheering crowd of pogromists.
“That pin is no symbol of peace,” the Brigade wrote. “It is the emblem of Jewish bloodshed.
“In 2000, Palestinian terrorists in Ramallah lynched two innocent Israelis, ripped them apart limb by limb, and held up their blood-soaked hands to a cheering mob. That infamous image is now your ‘ceasefire’ badge.
“And on the very day it was discovered that the Bibas babies—innocent Jewish children—were strangled to death by the terrorist’s bare hands, you asked Hollywood to wear it with pride.”
There was never any possible “peaceful” excuse for wearing the pin, nor could anyone claim ignorance. The red right hand is among the oldest symbols on earth, always used to symbolize bloody vengeance. The actors who wore the pin represent a morally bleak cross-section of humanity, and the fact that it took their Jewish peers’ public objection for them to stop parading around in an artistic rendering of Jewish blood further confirms the need for Jews to speak at full volume.
American Jews have to make some noise if they want to be heard. And as a bonus, they create great art when they do so.
I had come to Israel to learn more about war, and how it might eventually end. The plan was to talk to the IDF, listen to intelligence sources and hear the latest from the defence industry. I was also due to visit Technion, Israel’s Institute of Technology – a world class seat of learning and innovation. Linked to Albert Einstein, it has a central role in national life, training 80 per cent of Israeli engineers. From creating a microscopic Bible (the entire Old Testament on a chip the size of a grain of sand) to developing cancer cures and artificial meat, it is behind some of the most wondrous innovations on Earth.
Happily, I was still able to do all this, but the accident shifted my focus onto Israel’s widely admired healthcare system. The contrast with the NHS was too glaring to ignore.
Seemingly in no hurry (another novelty), my Polish surgeon talked of the benefits of dedicated emergency hospitals. (Our own acute facilities deal with both accidents and planned cases under one roof, a set-up that means backlogs in one area immediately affect the other.) Separate “hot” and “cold” sites might have saved much misery during the pandemic.
Based on mandatory health insurance with not-for-profit providers, Israel’s health system is means-tested but universal, ensuring even the poorest citizens are covered. By both efficiency and outcome, it ranks among the best in the world – as I can attest. By 10pm I was back in my hotel room, shocked, sore and feeling very stupid. I had been at the hospital for less than two hours. (In the UK, some 5,700 patients a day are forced to wait more than 12 hours to be seen at A&E).
The Sourasky uses all manner of time- and life-saving devices and AI wizardry to get patients through and out fast. For example, those who can are encouraged to speed up the initial admissions process by using simple self-service devices to provide their vital signs. Robots buzz around providing directions and other helpful information. In quiet moments, staff amuse themselves testing the AI: seeing if it understands slang (it does) and can tell the difference between male and female voices (it can).
Granted, Israel is a fraction of the size of the UK, with very different demographics. All the same, the NHS could learn lessons from this. So, of course, could I. A month after the debacle, my bruises have finally gone and I’m back on e-scooters. These days though, I’m considerably less cocky – and never wear hats that might fly off.
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