Coordinates	39°44′21″N104°59′5″N
Name	The Jerusalem Post
Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Broadsheet
Foundation	1 December 1932(as The Palestine Post)
Political	Independent
Owners	Mirkaei Tikshoret
Language	English and French
Issn	0021-597X
Headquarters	Jerusalem, Israel
Circulation	15,000(Weekends: 40,000) (International: 40,000)
Editor	David Horovitz
Website	www.jpost.com

The Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. While the daily readership numbers (tens of thousands) do not approach those of the major Hebrew newspapers, the Jerusalem Post has a much broader reach than these other newspapers in that its readership comprises Israeli politicians, foreign journalists, and tourists, and it is also distributed worldwide. Whilst it was once regarded as left-wing, the paper underwent a noticeable shift to the right in the late 1980s. Under the new ownership and editorial leadership of editor-in-chief David Horovitz since 2004, the paper's political identity has moved to a more complex centrist position. Examples of this shift include support for the August 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip and the paper's advocacy for privatization of Israeli religious institutions. The Post features columns and opinion articles that span the political spectrum.

History

The Palestine Post was founded on December 1, 1932 by American journalist-turned-newspaper-editor, Gershon Agron in the British Mandate of Palestine. During its time as The Palestine Post, the publication supported the struggle for a Jewish homeland in Palestine and openly opposed British policy restricting Jewish immigration during the Mandate period.

According to the Historical Jewish Press, The Palestine Post was established "as part of a Zionist-Jewish initiative", and "Zionist institutions considered the newspaper one of the most effective means of exerting influence on the British authorities".

On the evening of February 1, 1948, a stolen British police car loaded with half a ton of TNT pulled up in front of the Jerusalem office of the Palestine Post. The driver of a second car arrived a few minutes later, lit the fuse and drove off. The building also contained other newspaper offices, the British press censor, the Jewish settlement police, and a Hagana post with a cache of weapons. Arab leader Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni claimed responsibility for the bombing, but Hagana leaders suspected other parties, including Etzel, British forces, and "German saboteurs". Three persons died later, one newspaper typesetter and two people who lived in a nearby block of flats. Dozens of others were injured and the printing press was destroyed. The morning paper came out in a reduced format of two pages, printed up at a small print shop nearby.

In 1950, two years after the State of Israel was declared, the paper was renamed The Jerusalem Post.

Ownership changes

Until 1989 the paper supported the forerunners of the Labour Party. In 1989, the paper was purchased by Hollinger Inc. A number of journalists resigned from the Post after Conrad Black's takeover and founded the Jerusalem Report, a weekly magazine eventually sold to the Post. The leader of the walkout was David Landau, who founded Haaretz English Edition and went on to become editor-in-chief of Haaretz until 2009.

On November 16, 2004, Hollinger sold the paper to Mirkaei Tikshoret Ltd., a Tel Aviv-based publisher of Israeli newspapers. CanWest Global Communications, Canada's biggest media concern, had announced an agreement to take a 50 percent stake in the Jerusalem Post after Mirkaei bought the property, but the deal soured. The two sides went to arbitration, and CanWest lost.

Political orientation

The New York Times says "The Jerusalem Post’s stance has swung back and forth." Left-wing columns, notably by Larry Derfner and Naomi Chazan, are often featured on the editorial pages. It espouses economic positions close to those of libertarianism: tight fiscal control on public spending, curbing of welfare, cutting taxes, and anti-union monopoly legislation, among others. The paper competes with Haaretz newspaper, which began publishing an English language edition in the 1990s as an insert to the International Herald Tribune.

Today

The Jerusalem Post is published from Sunday to Friday, with no edition appearing on Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath) and Jewish religious holidays. The editor-in-chief is David Horovitz (formerly editor of the Jerusalem Report) who took over for current Wall Street Journal editorial board member Bret Stephens in 2004. The paper hosts a number of regular opinion columnists who provide insights on particular subjects such as religion, foreign affairs and economics. The paper's current News Editor is Amir Mizroch, who has directed the Post's news coverage since 2004.

The paper also publishes editions geared for the foreign market – a Christian edition, a French-language edition and an international edition – as well as several newspapers for children and teenagers. In 2007, it inaugurated a Hebrew-only business daily called The Business Post. There is also a section on Iran called "Iranian Threat'.

In January, 2008, the paper announced a new partnership with The Wall Street Journal, including joint marketing and exclusive publication in Israel of The Wall Street Journal Europe.

Some of the material in The Jerusalem Post is translated and included in the free Hebrew daily Israel Post, which is co-owned by Eli Azur, who owns a controlling stake in The Jerusalem Post.

JPost.com

The Jerusalem Post also publishes an online edition found at, and colloquially referred to as, Jpost.com. The site contains archives that go back to 1989, and the default search on the site sends users to archive listings, powered by ProQuest, where articles can be purchased. Free blurbs of the article are available as well, and full articles are available when linked to directly from navigation within JPost.com or from a search engine.

A French language version of the newspaper is also published online at fr.jpost.com.

Notable journalists and writers

Bernard Avishai

Alon Ben-Meir

Shmuley Boteach

Caroline B. Glick

Emanuel Feldman

Gidi Grinstein

Ray Hanania

Sarah Honig

Herb Keinon

Martin Kramer

Amir Mizroch

Yariv Oppenheimer

Shlomo Riskin

Jonathan Rosenblum

Khaled Abu Toameh

Gil Troy

Ehud Yaari

Chief editors

David Horovitz (2004-present)

Bret Stephens (2002-2004)

Jeff Barak (2000-2002)

Carl Schrag (2000)

David Makovsky (1999-2000)

Jeff Barak (1996-1999)

David Bar-Illan (1992-1996)

N. David Gross (1990-1992)

Ari Rath and Erwin Frenkel (1975-1989)

Lea Ben Dor (1974-1975)

Ted Lurie (1955-1975)

Gershon Agron (1932-1955)

See also

Sarah Honig

Herb Keinon

Amir Mizroch

Haviv Rettig

Khaled Abu Toameh

References

External links

Jerusalem Post – Internet Edition

Jerusalem Post – French Edition

Palestine Post – complete searchable contents 1932-1950

JPostPedia

Category:Publications established in 1932 Category:English-language newspapers Category:Jerusalem culture Category:Newspapers published in Israel Category:Media companies of Israel Category:Israeli brands

The Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan (the modern day Israel, western Jordan, southern Lebanon and Palestinian Territories) during the monarchic period (11th to 7th centuries BCE).

The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל (Standard: ; Tiberian: ; ISO 259-3: ). The Hebrew Bible etymologizes the name as from yisra "to prevail over", and el, "God, the divine". The ethnonym is attested as early as the 13th century BCE in an Egyptian inscription. The eponymous biblical patriarch of the Israelites is Jacob, who was given the additional name "Israel" after wrestling with an angel. Jacob demands a blessing from the angel which he eventually receives, hence "prevailing over the divine." (Genesis 32:28-30)

The biblical term "Israelites" (or the Twelve Tribes or Children of Israel) means both a people, the descendants of the patriarch Jacob/Israel, and the historical population of the kingdom of Israel, or a follower of the God of Israel and Mosaic law. In Modern Hebrew usage, an Israelite is, broadly speaking, a lay member of the Jewish faith, as opposed to the priestly orders of Kohenim and Levites.

The name Hebrews is sometimes used synonymously with "Israelites". For the post-exilic period, beginning in the 5th century BCE, the remnants of the Israelites came to be referred to as Jews, named for the kingdom of Judah. This change is explicit in the Book of Esther (4th century BCE). It replaced the title children of Israel.

Although most literary references to them are located in the Hebrew Bible, there is also abundant non-biblical archaeological and historical evidence of ancient Israel and Judah.

Terminology

Israel was the name given to the biblical patriarch Jacob after wrestling with an angel on the shores of the Jabbok, prior to a meeting with his brother Esau. Jacob had an intense rivalry with Esau, and this confrontation with the angel bears special significance in the story of the Israelites. ;Pentateuch The Torah traces the Israelites to the patriarch Jacob, grandson of Abraham, who was renamed Israel after a mystical incident in which he wrestles all night with an angel of God. Jacob's twelve sons (in order), Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph and Benjamin, become the ancestors of twelve tribes, with the exception of Joseph, whose two sons Mannasseh and Ephraim become tribal eponyms.

Jacob and his sons are forced by famine to go down into Egypt. When they arrive they and their families are 70 in number, but within four generations they have increased to 600,000 men of fighting age, and the Pharaoh of Egypt, alarmed, first enslaves them and then orders the death of all male Hebrew children. The God of Israel reveals his name to Moses, a Hebrew of the line of Levi; Moses leads the Israelites out of bondage and into the desert, where God gives them their laws and the Israelites agree to become his people. Nevertheless, the Israelites lack complete faith in God, and the generation which left Egypt is not permitted to enter the Promised Land.

;Former Prophets Following the death of the generation of Moses a new generation, led by Joshua, enters Canaan and takes possession of the land in accordance with the curse placed upon Canaan by Noah. Yet even now the Israelites lack strength in God in the face of the peoples of the land, and periods of weakness and backsliding alternate with periods of resilience under a succession of Judges. Eventually the Israelites ask for a king, and God gives them Saul. David, the youngest (divinely favoured) son of Jesse of Bethlehem would succeed Saul. Under David the Israelites establish the kingdom of God, and under David's son Solomon they build the Temple where God takes his earthly dwelling among them. Yet Solomon sins by allowing his foreign wives to worship their own gods, and so on his death the kingdom is divided in two.

The kings of the northern kingdom of Israel are uniformly bad, permitting the worship of other gods and failing to enforce the worship of God alone, and so God eventually allows them to be conquered and dispersed among the peoples of the earth; in their place strangers settle the northern land. In Judah some kings are good and enforce the worship of God alone, but many are bad and permit other gods, even in the Temple itself, and at length God allows the Judah to fall to her enemies, the people taken into captivity in Babylon, the land left empty and desolate, and the Temple itself destroyed.

;Ezra-Nehemiah-Chronicles Yet despite these events God does not forget his people, but sends Cyrus, king of Persia as his messiah to deliver them from bondage. The Israelites are allowed to return to Judah and Benjamin, the Temple is rebuilt, the priestly orders restored, and the service of sacrifice resumed. Through the offices of the sage Ezra Israel is constituted as a holy community, holding itself apart from all other peoples, bound by the Law.

Tribes and peoples

Although most traditional interpretations of Jewish history view the Israelites as the ancestors of both the Kingdom of Israel and that of Judah, which arose only after David's rule, and Hebrews as an alternative name for them, the text makes a distinction between groups labeled Hebrews, Judahites, and Israelites. Israelites consistently refers to Saul's forces. It also is used to refer to the supporters of the rebellions against David's reign, in contrast to his supporters. Judahites consistently refers to David's supporters during the rebellions against his rule, in contrast to the rebels. Hebrews is consistently used to designate a group distinct from both Israelites and Judahites, and who sometimes take the side of the Philistines against Israel and Judah. It is weakly associated with Jonathan initially, and then more strongly with David's band of outlaws. However, this labeling appears to be only for convenient grouping, since there are several textual examples that clarify that the Hebrews are of the same people as the Israelites: I Samuel 13:3-4, I Samuel 13:19-20, and I Samuel 14:11-12.

Gilead and Jezreel are listed as tribes of Israel, rather than being treated strictly as locations. In accordance with evidence of this kind elsewhere, all attributed by scholars to the earliest sources, such as in the Song of Deborah, scholars have concluded that the tribal system known as the tribes of Israel evolved over a period of time:

Gilead, Jezreel and Joseph were originally three tribes in the confederation. Jezreel later split into Zebulun and Issachar. Gilead later split into Machir, Gad, and Reuben. Machir later merged with part of Joseph to form Manasseh, while the other part split off to become Ephraim.

Hasmonean conversions

After the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 Judah (Hebrew: יְהוּדָה Yehuda) remained a province of the Persian empire. This continued into the following Hellenistic period, when Yehud was a province sometimes of Ptolemaic Egypt and sometimes of Seleucid Syria, but in the early part of the 2nd century BCE a revolt against the Seleucids led to the establishment of an independent Jewish kingdom under the Hasmonean dynasty. The Hasmoneans adopted a deliberate policy of imitating and reconstituting the Davidic kingdom, and as part of this forcibly converted to Judaism their neighbours in the Land of Israel. The new Israelites included Nabatean groups such as the Zabadeans and Itureans, the peoples of the former Philistine cities, the people of Galilee, and the Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites.

"Israelites" in modern Judaism

In the Hellenistic and early Roman periods (i.e., around the time of Christ), and despite the exclusivism championed by the Book of Ezra, (contradicted by other biblical books from the same time, such as Ruth), Judaism became a proselytising religion. As proselytised (and conquered) groups were assimilated into the Israelite lineage the old tribal divisions fell into disuse, and the major divisions within Judaism thus became:

Kohanim (descended from the lineage of Aaron, the first High Priest in the time of Moses)

Levites (other descendants of Levi)

Israelites

This threefold division of the Jewish people persists to this day. To avoid confusion with the broader use of the term Israelite or the modern term Israeli, a member of the Israelite, as opposed to Levite or Aaronite, lineage is usually referred to as a Yisrael (an Israel) and not a Yisraeli (which could mean Israelite in the broader sense or in modern Hebrew, an Israeli).

Modern groups descendant from the Israelites

Jews

Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים‎, Yehudim), also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. Converts to Judaism have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia. There are distinct ethnic divisions among Jews, most of which are primarily the result of geographic branching from an originating Israelite population, and subsequent independent evolutions. According to the Books of Chronicles chapter 9 line 2, the Jews who took part in The Return to Zion (whom modern Jews are originated from) are stated to be from the Tribe of Judah (alongside the Tribe of Simeon that were absorbed into it), the Tribe of Benjamin, the Tribe of Levi (Levites and Priests) and also from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (which some biblical scholars consider to be a referring name describing the remaining population of the Northern Kingdom of Israel from all ten tribes who were not exiled during the famous Ten tribes exile; they had stayed to live in their homes and later joined the Israelites of the Kingdom of Judah at the time of King Hezekiah, and formed the Jews of the Babylonian Exile era).

Ashkenazi Jews

Ashkenaz is the Hebrew word for "Germany". There are several populations which have lived in Germany at some point in the past 1,000 years and fall under the umbrella term for the group. There is evidence that Jews had settled in Germany since the Roman Era; they were probably merchants who followed the Roman Legions during their conquests. Some Ashkenazi Jews are the descendants of Jews who migrated into northern France and Germany around 800–1000 CE, and were later sent into Eastern Europe. Many Ashkenazic Jews are also Sephardic in origin as a result of diaspora from the Spanish Inquisition. In this sense "Ashkenazi" refers to religious practice, appropriated over time, rather than to a strict ethno-geographic division.

Arthur Koestler claimed in his book "The Thirteenth Tribe" (1976) that Ashkenazi Jews are descendants of central European Khazars who converted into Judaism during the 8th century. Koestler argued that by proving Ashkenazi Jews to have no connection with the biblical Jews, European anti-Semitism would lose all basis. This claim was adopted by anti-semites and anti-Zionists alike. However, Genetic studies on Jews showed that the vast majority of Ashkenazi Jews are of Middle Eastern origin, and also share a common ancestry with the vast majority of the world Jewry, while only 5%-8% of the European Ashkenazi Jews (according to recent studies) were found to have originated in non-Jewish European populations.

Sephardic Jews

Sephardim are Jews whose ancestors lived in Spain or Portugal, where they lived for possibly as much as two millennia before being expelled in 1492 by the Catholic Monarchs (see Alhambra decree); they subsequently migrated to North Africa Maghreb and Ottoman Empire (both at the time considered safe havens for Jews). In the Ottoman Empire the Sephardim mostly settled in the European portion of the Empire, and mainly in the major cities such as: Constantinople, Thessaloniki and Bursa. Thessaloniki, which today is to be found in modern-day Greece, had a large and flourishing Sephardic community as was the community of Maltese Jews in Malta. Others settled in Italy, the Netherlands and Latin America. A large population of Sephardic refugees who fled via the Netherlands as Marranos eventually settled in Hamburg and Altona Germany in the early 16th century, eventually appropriating Ashkenazic Jewish rituals into their religious practice (see above). One famous figure from the Sephardic Ashkenazic population is Glückel of Hameln. Others among those who settled in the Netherlands, were some who would again relocate to the United States, establishing the country's first organized community of Jews and erecting the United States' first synagogue. Other Sephardim remained in Spain and Portugal as anusim (forced converts to Catholicism), which would also be the fate for those who had migrated to Spanish and Portuguese ruled Latin America.

Mizrachi Jews

Mizrahim are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and the Caucasus. The term Mizrahi is used in Israel in the language of politics, media and some social scientists for Jews from the Arab world and adjacent, primarily Muslim-majority countries. This includes Iraqi Jews, Syrian Jews, Lebanese Jews, Maghreb Jews , Yemenite Jews, Persian Jews, Afghan Jews, Bukharian Jews, Kurdish Jews, Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews and Ethiopian Jews.

Yemenite Jews

Temanim are Jews living in Yemen whose geographic and social isolation from the rest of the Jewish community allowed them to develop a liturgy and set of practices that are significantly distinct from those of other Oriental Jewish groups; they themselves comprise three distinctly different groups, though the distinction is one of religious law and liturgy rather than of ethnicity.

Karaite Jews

Karaim are Jews living mostly in Egypt, Iraq, Crimea and Israel. They are distinguished by the form of Judaism they observe. Rabbinic Jews of varying ethnicities have affiliated with the Karaite community throughout the millennia. As such, Karaite Jews are less a Jewish ethnic division, than they are members of a particular branch of Judaism. Karaite Judaism recognizes the Tanakh as the single religious authority of the Jewish people. Linguistic principles and contextual exegesis are used in arriving at the correct meaning of the Torah. Karaite Jews strive to adhere to the plain or most obvious understanding of the text when interpreting the Tanakh. By contrast, Rabbinical Judaism regards an Oral Law (codified and recorded in the Mishnah and Talmuds) as being equally binding on Jews, and mandated by God. In Rabbinical Judaism, the Oral Law forms the basis of religion, morality, and Jewish life. Karaite Jews rely on the use of sound reasoning and the application of linguistic tools to determine the correct meaning of the Tanakh; while Rabbinical Judaism looks toward the Oral law codified in the Talmud, to provide the Jewish community with an accurate understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures.

There are approximately 50,000 adherents of Karaite Judaism, most of whom live in Israel, but exact numbers are not known, as most Karaites have not participated in any religious censuses. The differences between Karaite and Rabbinic Judaism go back more than a thousand years. Rabbinical Judaism originates from the Pharisees of the Second Temple period. Karaite Judaism may have its origins in the Sadducees of the same era. Unlike the Sadducees who recognized only the Torah as binding, Karaite Jews hold the entire Hebrew Bible to be a religious authority. As such, the vast majority of Karaites believe in the resurrection of the dead. Karaite Jews are widely regarded as being halachically Jewish by the Orthodox Rabbinate. Similarly, members of the rabbinic community are considered to be Jews by the Moetzet Hakhamim, if they are patrilineally Jewish.

Anusim

During the Jewish diaspora, Jews who lived in Christian Europe were usually attacked by the local population and were portrayed by many Anti-semites motives, many of them were forced to convert to Christianity by the local population or by the religious leadership, and were called by Jews: "Anusim" ('forced-ones'), they continued practicing Judaism in secret, while living outside as ordinary Christians. The most known case of "Anusim" was the one of the Jews of Spain and Jews of Portugal (although "Anusim" were also in other European countries). On the Muslim countries, many Jews were forced to convert to Islam by force over the years since the rise of the Islamic religion, and the most known case of those conversion was the case of Mashhad Jews, that lived as ordinary Muslims in Persia but kept practicing Judaism, and eventually made an Aliyah and returned being Jewish in Israel. Many Anusim's descendants left Judaism over the years. On December 2008, genetic test showed that 19.8% of the Iberian Peninsula are originated from the Anusim.

Samaritans

The Samaritans, who were once a comparatively large group but are now a very small ethnic and religious group of not more than about 700 people who live in Israel and the West Bank, regard themselves as descendants of the tribes of Ephraim (named by them as Aphrime) and Manasseh (named by them as Manatch). Samaritans adhere to a version of the Torah, known as the Samaritan Pentateuch, which differs in some respects from the Masoretic text, sometimes in important ways, and less so from the Septuagint.

Samaritans do not regard the Tanakh as an accurate or truthful history, and regard only Moses as a prophet. They have their own version of Hebrew and their own script for writing Hebrew, which, is descended directly from the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, unlike the Jewish script for writing Hebrew which is a stylized form of the Aramaic alphabet the Jews adopted during their captivity in Babylonia.

The Samaritans consider themselves Bnei Yisrael ("Children of Israel" or "Israelites"), but do not regard themselves to be Yehudim (Jews). They view this term "Jews" as a designation for followers of Judaism, which they assert is a related but altered and amended religion brought back by the exiled Israelite returnees which is not the true religion of the ancient Israelites, which according to them, Samaritanism is.

Judaism regards the Samaritans as descendants of the northern tribesmen whom the Assyrians settled in the territory they conquered from the kingdom of Israel. Since one of those tribes was the Cutheans, this is the name used for the Samaritans in the Talmud. Both the Bible and external sources such as Josephus record intermarriage between Jews and Samaritans in the Hellenistic period.

Modern DNA evidence has proven both most of the world's Jews and the Samaritans have a common ancestral lineage to the Israelites, largely on the paternal lines in both cases. Maternally, both Jews and Samaritans have very low rates of intermarriage with local host (for Jews, local populations in their host diaspora regions) or alien (for Samaritans, foreigners resettled in their midst in attempts by ruling foreign elites to obliterate national identities) populations. Both populations' DNA results indicate the groups having had a high percentage of marriage within their respective communities; in contrast to a low percentage of interfaith marriages.

Historical Israelites

(JE 31408), bearing the first record of the name Israel (Cairo Museum)]]

The name Israel first appears c. 1209 BCE, at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the very beginning of the period archaeologists and historians call Iron Age I, in an inscription of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah. The inscription is very brief and says simply: "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not". The hieroglyph accompanying the name "Israel" indicates that it refers to a people, most probably located in the highlands of Samaria.

Over the next two hundred years (the period of Iron Age I) the number of highland villages increased from 25 to over 300 and the settled population doubled to 40,000. There is general agreement that the majority of the population living in these villages was of Canaanite origin. By the 10th century BCE a rudimentary state had emerged in the north-central highlands, and in the 9th century this became a kingdom. The kingdom was sometimes called Israel by its neighbours, but more frequently it was known as the "House (or Land) of Omri." Settlement in the southern highlands was minimal from the 12th through the 10th centuries, but a state began to emerge there in the 9th century, and from 850 onwards a series of inscriptions are evidence of a kingdom which its neighbours refer to as the "House of David."

See also

Bible

Gentile

Half Jewish

House of Israel (Ghana)

Israeli Jews

Israelis

Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy)

Noahides

Portuguese Jewish community in Hamburg

Shavei Israel

Tribal allotments of Israel

References and notes

External links

Category:Semitic peoples Category:Jewish history Category:Ancient peoples Category:Ethnonyms Category:Jews