Dr. Phil attributed Israel’s ranking partly to a strong sense of belonging.
By Shula Rosen
Dr. Phil McGraw pointed to Israel’s ranking as the world’s eighth-happiest country despite the Oct. 7 massacre and subsequent war, arguing that faith, family, purpose and education help explain Israelis’ resilience under prolonged pressure.
Speaking three years after the Oct. 7 attack, McGraw cited the 2025 World Happiness Report, which placed Israel eighth among 147 countries, ahead of the US, the UK, Canada and France.
“Israel, its people racing to shelters as missiles rained down and still ranked number eight in happiness in the whole world. How is that even possible?” he said.
McGraw noted that nearly 300,000 Israelis were called into military service almost overnight, while the country faced missiles from Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.
He also cited the 1,200 Jews murdered on Oct. 7 and the deaths of innocent Gazans, who he said “were used as human shields by Hamas terrorists.”
The happiness rankings are based on Gallup data and the Cantril ladder, which asks respondents to rate their lives on a scale from zero, representing the worst possible life, to 10, representing the best.
Finland ranked first, followed by Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Costa Rica and Norway.
McGraw attributed Israel’s ranking partly to a strong sense of belonging, citing a piece by historian Gil Troy and Nathan Kerensky, a former Soviet dissident who spent nine years in a Siberian prison and is now an Israeli politician.
He identified four factors behind Israeli happiness: faith, family, purpose and education.
McGraw pointed to religious and traditional practices across Israeli society, the country’s high birth rate and the return of thousands of Israelis living abroad following Oct. 7 to serve.
Israel also spends the third-highest share of GDP on education in the OECD, he said, while more than half of Israeli adults hold college degrees.
McGraw acknowledged Israel’s mental health crisis but argued that happiness does not require an easy life.
“It’s about having a life that means something,” he said, describing Israel’s combination of faith, family, purpose and education as “a blueprint for happiness for us all.”