When my wife and I planned a sabbatical in Israel, our goal was simple, to give our kids the gift of living and learning in their ancestral homeland. Raised in the comfortable bubble of Marin County, California, we wanted to drop them into public schools where they knew no one and spoke no Hebrew – a master class in resilience.
Then came October 7.
Suddenly, the move looked reckless. We were nine months from departure with irreversible plans. We devoured the news, measured the risks, and even asked whether California – where antisemitism was flaring and affecting us directly – was really safer. We changed our minds daily.
What finally tipped the scales for me was an Instagram clip of ordinary Tel Aviv life: people sipping coffee and strolling in and out of cafes. The news shows only fire and fear, but normal life carries on. We decided to go.
On arrival, I set out to close the gap between headlines and reality. Friends called us crazy for moving to a “war zone.” Others lectured me about politics. I realized how much even my own views were shaped by reporting, so I tried to forget everything I thought I knew, and I began listening.
A drop in population
Israel was about to hit a population of 10 million, and the Central Bureau of Statistics was set to drop its latest population census the week that we arrived.
I pored through the data and created 100 profiles that collectively reflected the demographics of the entire country by age, gender, religion/ethnicity, location, and place of origin. And then I went out to take portraits and interview one person to match each profile.
My personal goal was modest: I just wanted to find a signal in the noise, bringing my understanding of Israelis’ lived reality into sharper focus.
The result, however, was far more rewarding.
I searched for everyday people through word of mouth, asking only to hear stories from their lives. I told each one that I could not care less about their politics, but could not care more about their life experience. Nearly everyone I asked to participate said yes.
I met West Bank settlers – including a gentle septuagenarian devoted to coexistence; an Ethiopian Jew who hiked barefoot through Sudan to escape persecution; a Sudanese refugee who fled genocide, mastered Hebrew and English, and is now a solar engineer bursting with gratitude. Twenty-one Palestinian citizens of Israel (representing 21% of the population), young and old, also shared stories of hardship and hope.
I listened and cried for hours with survivors of the Supernova music festival who demonstrated heroism while experiencing the unimaginable. I met an ultra-Orthodox mother who left her community after a trauma to raise her children alone in Tel Aviv, one son became secular like her, and the other stayed ultra-Orthodox.
The process wasn’t easy.
From day one to the final shoot, the work was performed amid active war. For months, the North was evacuated under Hezbollah fire. My last portrait was in east Jerusalem during the Israel-Iran war, after a week spent sleeping with my family in a bunker, three stories underground. Road closures and missile sirens were routine.
Across the 100 encounters, themes kept surfacing: trauma, resilience, tight-knit communities, and lots of kids – nearly a third of the country. And this tracked to my children’s experience: They experienced war yet were embraced by warmth and belonging. When friends back home saw them again this summer, they were stunned by their new maturity and perspective.
This project deepened my empathy for those who call Israel home. It taught me that headlines don’t tell the story; people do. And most will gladly share their stories if someone simply asks.
What began as a personal journey became a coffee table book called Hinenu – Hebrew for “Here we are.” It will be available in the United States by Hanukkah and Christmas. Preordering is now open at HinenuBook.com.
The writer – with his wife and kids – is a recent immigrant who hit the ground running on Hinenu the minute he arrived in Israel. He is a real estate investor and passionate about showcasing Israel and Israeli life and history.