In this episode of Tel Aviv Diary, Marc Schulman sits down with neighbor and new olah David Schlachter, who moved his family from the Bay Area to Tel Aviv in August 2024 after a decade-long plan collided with the realities of October 7 and rising antisemitism in the United States. David describes the family’s debate—stay in California or make the leap during wartime—and what it felt like to land, settle, and place three children into Israeli public schools just days before the school year began.

David also shares his unusual sabbatical project: building a “demographic mosaic” of Israel by creating 100 profiles that mirror the country’s population—by age, gender, geography, and background—then interviewing and photographing real people to match each profile. The result is a portrait-driven book, “Hinenu” (“Here we are”), designed to capture Israel at a singular moment: diverse, wounded, resilient, and intensely communal. Along the way, Marc and David talk about Tel Aviv’s transformation since 2010—food, coffee, skyline, and all—and why, in Israel, strangers are often ready to tell their life story if someone simply takes the time to ask.

Show notes: Hinenu: Israel at Ten Million is a new photography and oral-history book by David Shlachter that captures Israel through the lives of 100 people at the exact moment the country reached a population of ten million. Created during wartime and deep national uncertainty, the project pairs striking portraits with first-person stories that reflect Israel’s full demographic mosaic—Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, sabras and immigrants, elders and children—mirroring the latest census data.

Intentionally apolitical, Hinenu (Hebrew for Here we are) is an act of listening: a human portrait of a society still becoming itself, told in its own voices.

Learn more at www.HinenuBook.com

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