Why Israel still feels like the happiest place on Earth |
I walk the streets of Jerusalem with a smile plastered on my face.
It’s not because life in Israel is easy. It isn’t. Sirens interrupt conversations and sleep. Flights are canceled without warning. The news cycle delivers more anxiety than comfort. And yet—if you spend even a short time in the country—you sense something deeper, something almost paradoxical.
Israel is, as the latest global happiness survey confirms, one of the happiest places on earth.
At first glance, that makes no sense. How can a country at war, facing daily threats, rank eighth in global happiness—higher than the United States, the United Kingdom, or France?
But if you walk these streets, you begin to understand.
Happiness here is not the absence of hardship. It is the........