Source documents: The Israeli Knesset Debates, 1948-1981 are available online through the prodigious work of Dr. Natanel Lorch and good offices of the the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. Six volumes cover this period. Each volume is available as a PDF, as are 18 key debates from events in Israel’s democratic history. Among those are the Altalena Affair, Law of Return, Jerusalem and the holy places, reparations from Germany, Eichmann trial, Dimona reactor, Six-Day War, Yom Kippur War, U.N. treatment of Zionism, Israeli treatment of Arabs in the territories and Jerusalem Law. The material assembled also includes a glossary of Israeli political parties, a listing of Israeli personalities who served in various governmental capacities over time, and a summary of the Knesset debates from 1948-1981. This is a rich resource, and certainly worth perusing. Any one of the topical debates could be used in shaping discussions for a variety of cursory or in-depth enrichment purposes.

Website: https://main.knesset.gov.il/en/pages/default.aspx. The Israeli Knesset website is available in Arabic, English, Hebrew and Russian. It is a wealth of information about contemporary events, elections and Israel’s democracy. There is no peer to this website for inclusion of information about how the Israeli government works. The website is robust in content; it includes Basic Laws, legislative process, the Knesset’s history, and roles of various governmental institutions such as the president, judiciary, Cabinet and prime minister. For those interested in accessing regular information about the Knesset, lawmaking and key decisions, the homepage contains a digest of the current goings-on in the 120-member parliament.