How would the experience be different depending on the country the settler was from originally? What would the culture of the new country have been like? How technologically advanced would Israel have been in 1948 compared to other countries at the same time?
I've recently taken a class on Arab-Israeli History, and this is an interesting (and controversial) question.
There were of course already settlers in Israel before the 1948 War (known either as the First Arab-Israeli War or the Israeli War for Independence). The majority of settlements during and directly after the war were kibbutzim, which were primarily agricultural settlements based around socialist/ Zionist values. These agricultural settlements were important because they took advantage of a wide range of expertise in agricultural practice from which settlers came from. The generally more advanced agricultural practices that defined the kibbutzim often gave the settlers an economic advantage over their Arab neighbors, and as highly educated refugees entered, Israel's cities began to grow and industry began to develop.
Most settlers following the war came from Europe, and were often survivors of the holocaust. Others would stream in from Arab countries that became hostile to their native Jewish populations.
The new country was of course different than the old ones. Jews from Europe had of course survived the holocaust, and were generally eager to come to a Jewish state. Generally they shared Yiddish as a common language, but knew (and eventually spoke) Hebrew as well. Jews from Arab countries often had a harder time integrating, as the Zionist movement had been started and dominated by European Jews. Some of the world's oldest Jewish communities (such as those in Aleppo or Cairo) were eventually displaced by Arab-Israeli strife.
Israel's economy was still rudimentary close to post-Independence. As I said, agriculture in Israel was well developed, but only in subsequent decades would the high tech economic sectors Israel is now known for develop. Israel's connections to Jews worldwide proved invaluable in getting the country's economy running, and the international investment that was available was more extensive than most other post-colonial states.
If you'd like to learn more, check out Benny Morris' comprehensive Righteous Victims which is a history of Israel and its relations with its neighbors conflict, or Rodinson's Israel: A colonial Settler State? for a more controversial historical approach.
I'd highly recommend reading The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan. It is by far one of the most sensitive, insightful and intimate accounts of such a controversial subject and might be a good starting point.