Israel has reached a population of 10 million. Within months of hitting this milestone, the country released its first census in 15 years, outlining the demographics of these 10 million people by gender, age, religion, location, and place of origin. American photographer David Shlachter traveled throughout Israel to document the population at this landmark, capturing portraits and human stories from a sample of 100 people who proportionally reflect the overall demographics of the country. All portraits and stories were captured during the October 7th War, providing unique insight into the nuanced experiences of people living through a period of intense conflict.
Dave Shlachter is a graduate of Harvard University with a professional background in international development and entrepreneurship. In his early 20s, Dave lived and worked in New Delhi on a grant from the U.S. Department of State to help build South Asia’s first mediation center under the auspices of the Supreme Court of India. To succeed in mediation, one has to really dig in and understand people’s interests, and how those interests derive from their lived experiences. In graduate school, Dave wrote an award-winning masters thesis about electrifying Rwanda’s bus fleet, based on scores of interviews conducted in the field. This deepened his ability to engage people across vastly different backgrounds — from bus drivers to government ministers — and uncover the values, pressures, and beliefs that shape their decisions. On the surface, Israel looks like one big conflict. People all over the world feel extremely strong emotions toward the country, though most have never traveled there, do not know anyone who lives there, and have limited understanding of the texture of people’s lives there. To fill this gap, Dave first studied portrait photography for several years (winning several awards along the way), and then moved with his young family to Tel Aviv specifically to find, interview, and photograph 100 residents of Israel, focusing purely on human stories that provide a window into their lived reality. This work has been the most rewarding and fulfilling of Dave’s life, opening up deep wells of empathy for the incredibly diverse set of people who call Israel home.
