While (some) Americans have been celebrating the win of Democract Barack Obama over Republican John McCain here at home, parts of Jerusalem are celebrating their new mayor according to the NY Times article, Secular Defeats Ultra-Orthodox in Jerusalem. While Palestinians boycotted the elections, Jews of all stripes fought along the secular-Orthodox divide.

Though my experience of Israel derives solely from having summered there at an ultra-Orthodox school for converts, I found that the battles between secular and Orthodox were a little unsettling to someone not at all well-versed in the mores of that familiar Israeli civil war. When my rabbi asked me what I was learning in Israel, I remember telling him, “Jews really hate each other.”