In order to view this feature, you must download the latest version of flash player here.
#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}It's fair to say that Oded Balilty knows Israel. He grew up in Jerusalem and has been covering the country as a photographer for The Associ ated Press since 2002.
But this year, as he photographed the Russian community there, he learned - to his surprise - that he still had a lot to learn. At least about the Russians that make up more than 15 percent of the population of Israel.
In a country full of Jewish immigrants, children of immigrants, and grandchildren of immigrants, Israeli Russians have retained a sense of their culture, language and identity. Yet they remain slightly apart.
Mr. Balilty set out to explore the community precisely because he, and his friends, knew so little about them. He photographed boxing matches, chess games and Russian nightclubs and often found that not a word of Hebrew was spoken all night.
“Some days, I felt like I was in Eastern Europe, but five minutes from my house,†Mr. Balilty said.
Oded Balilty/Associated Press A Russian-speaking Israeli security guard in the V.I.P. room of a nightclub where he works in Tel Aviv.Israel has the third-largest Russian-speaking population outside of Russia, after the United States and Germany. As the Soviet Union crumbled in the late 1980s into the 1990s, a flood of Russians with Jewish ties, sometimes tenuous, departed for Israel. They were leaving a land that historically had been less than welcoming to Jews for a land where they would be in the majority.
In Israel, they have become successful in academia, technology, sports and politics. Yisrael Beiteinu, a nationalist political party with a secular, Russian-speaking base, has become a powerful force in Israeli politics.
Mr. Balilty's journey starte d a year ago, at a large Russian New Year's Eve celebration. In Israel, most people celebrate the Jewish lunar new year, Rosh Hashana. Mr. Balilty said that he can appreciate continuing one's culture, as his parents had emigrated from Morocco to Israel.
“The Russians are totally Israeli. They work like everyone else, often in high-tech jobs, but at night they can live in a different world,†Mr. Balilty, 33, said. “They came here with a beautiful culture, but the culture didn't open to the Israeli people. I hope someday that Israel will be able to fully experience it.â€
Oded Balilty/Associated Press A Russian folk music festival in northern Israel.Mr. Balilty, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for his memorable photograph of a West Bank settler holding off a phalanx of Israeli security forces, was featured on Lens earlier this year for his images of a Hasidic wedding.
Follow @JamesEstrin and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. Lens is also on Facebook.
