Mm, I just read part of Kushiel's Dart (you were right: very good book, totally not my sort of thing) and noticed the reference to judaism on the wiki page when I got a synopsis of the plot, as well as a little bit in the book itself.

After thinking about this some more (as a result of writing this post and replying to people's comments), I think the lack of jews niggling at me stems from a larger problem with the way fantasy is written, which to a large extent boils down to an irritation with the fact that other people have different taste to me :)

Still, I think it's goten me closer to articulating my issues with fantasy, though there's still some brain percolation required.