WHY ARE ISRAELIS SO DAM HAPPY?

War has quite a bit to do with it. The fact is that Israel has been in a perpetual state of war—or under the threat of war—since David Ben-Gurion declared independence in May 1948, the only Western country in the world in which this is the case. Being raised in Israel lends to a unique mental capacity for overcoming hardship, living life to the full, to a degree that is unlike any other Western country in the world. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that Israelis recover from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) far quicker than people of other Western nations. Other studies have consistently shown that the level of clinical anxiety remains very low, even during periods of immense violence. So even though Israelis are painfully aware of the never-ending threats, they're also braver because of them. 

(Photos: Copyright Control)

The tough Israeli psyche is found in young and old alike and doesn't just manifest itself within the die-hards like the 86-year-old ex-paratrooper who was born in Israel and says, "Nothing scares me" with such a stone-cold expression on his weathered face that you truly believe him. (C) Tiffanie Wen.