Written before the most recent events in Israel, The Genius of Israel offers an upbeat picture of what makes the country strong, despite its challenges and problems. While the authors — one an American political consultant and sometime government advisor and the other an American-born Israeli journalist — do not ignore the difficulties Israel has faced, they stress the resilience of Israel and its people and attempt to identify the reasons for its “genius.”
Dan Senor and Saul Singer begin with the startling fact that Israel ranked fourth out of 150 nations in the most recent UN-sponsored World Happiness Report (by contrast, the US ranked fourteenth). Despite some real problems of social inequality, and despite the stereotype that Israelis constantly argue and complain, those surveyed expressed a generally satisfied view of their quality of life. They suffered fewer “deaths of despair” and had a high degree of optimism. These data were gathered between 2020 and 2023, coinciding with both the Covid lockdown and Israel’s long political stalemate over judiciary reform. One wonders how the responses would look were the survey taken now, in the wake of Hamas’s attack.
The authors see this combination of optimism and challenge as the essence of Israeliness. They tie Israelis’ strong sense of belonging to their identification with the nation, to the ethos of service instilled in them by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and to what Senor and Singer call the hevre: the networks of companions, friends, and relatives to which every Israeli is connected. All of this leads to a greater sense of social cohesiveness (gibush in Hebrew) among Israelis than among those in most other countries.
Seven of the book’s thirteen chapters examine Israeli success stories. Many of these focus on innovative efforts, expanding on content in the authors’ previous book, Start-Up Nation (2009). Senor and Singer also include several chapters that consider the internal divisions in the country. “The Wars of the Jews” centers on the history and recent upsurge of dissension. “The Other Israel” addresses the position of both the strictly religious (Haredi) community and the Israeli Arab community. Only briefly discussed is the long political stalemate that preceded the reelection of Bibi Netanyahu as the head of a coalition of conservative, nationalistic, and religious parties. The authors seem to support Netanyahu’s policy on the judiciary — or they at least offer a rationale for it that might surprise many American Jews.
Even if one is skeptical that everything is as bright as Senor and Singer claim, reading this book might serve as an antidote to the gloom of recent events. One can only hope that the authors’ take on Israeli resilience holds true in the face of the most intense hostilities Israel has faced in nearly fifty years.
