Here’s a fascinating glimpse into Israel’s “Jewish democracy” from the perspective of an American woman:
http://www.transitionmagazine.com/articles/zion.htm
One of the things that struck me as I read this was how Palestinians are, for the most part, a remote abstraction, as thoroughly cleansed from the cultural landscape of Israel as the American Indian is from ours.
PS — Emily Raboteau is an assistant professor in the English Department at the City College of New York. She has a MFA in Fiction from New York University, where she was a New York Times Fellow. Her short stories have appeared in Callaloo, the Missouri Review, the Gettysburg Review, Tin House, Best American Short Stories, Best American Mystery Stories and elsewhere. She has received the Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Award, a Pushcart Prize, a NY Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and a Literature Fellowship from the NEA. Henry Holt published her first novel, The Professor’s Daughter, in 2005. She lives in Harlem.