What It’s Like to Grow Up in an Israeli Settlement

This week we bring you Iris Zaki’s thought-provoking short film “Natural Born Settlers.” A self-described liberal from cosmopolitan Tel Aviv, Zaki wanted to get behind the politics of Israel’s controversial settlements in the occupied territories — so she moved there, temporarily, setting up an improvised cafe where she could chat with settlers from her own generation.

Zaki’s previous Op-Doc was “The Shampoo Summit,” for which she took a job at a Christian Arab-owned hair salon, using a similarly playful, open-minded approach to transcend rhetoric and ideology and spark serious conversations with her fellow Israelis.