Front page of the Hebrew and English editions

Haaretz (Hebrew: הארץ‎) (lit. "The Land [of Israel]", originally Ḥadashot Ha'aretz – Hebrew: חדשות הארץ‎, IPA: [χadaˈʃot haˈʔaʁets] – "News of the Land"^[3]) is Israel's oldest daily newspaper. It was founded in 1918 and is now published in both Hebrew and English in Berliner format. The English edition is published and sold together with the International Herald Tribune. Both Hebrew and English editions can be read on the Internet. In North America, it comes out as a weekly newspaper, combining articles from the Friday edition with a roundup from the rest of the week. It is known for its staunch left-liberal stance on domestic and foreign issues.

Overview[link]

Compared to other mass circulation papers in Israel, Haaretz uses smaller headlines and print. Less space is devoted to pictures, and more to political analysis. Its editorial pages are considered influential among government leaders.^[4] Apart from the news, Haaretz publishes feature articles on social and environmental issues, as well as book reviews, investigative reporting and political commentary. In 2008, the newspaper itself reported a paid subscribership of 65,000, daily sales of 72,000 copies, and 100,000 on weekends.^[5] The English edition has a subscriber base of 15,000.^[6][7] As of June 2011, Haaretz readership was 5.8% of the public, down from 6.4% the prior year.^[8]

Despite its relatively low circulation in Israel, Haaretz is considered Israel's most influential daily newspaper.^{[9][10][11][12]} Its readership includes Israel's intelligentsia and its political and economic elites.^[13][14][15] Surveys show that Haaretz readership has a higher-than-average education, income, and wealth; most are Ashkenazim.^[7][16] Shmuel Rosner, the newspaper's former U.S. correspondent, told The Nation, "people who read it are better educated and more sophisticated than most, but the rest of the country doesn't know it exists."^[7]

History and ownership[link]

Haaretz was first published in 1918 as a newspaper sponsored by the British military government in Palestine.^[17] In 1919 it was taken over by Russian Zionists.^[18] Initially, it was called Hadashot Ha'aretz ("News of the Land"). Later, the name was shortened to "Ha'aretz". The literary section of the paper attracted the leading Hebrew writers of the time.^[19]

The newspaper was initially published in Jerusalem. From 1919 to 1922, the paper was headed by a succession of editors, among them Leib Yaffe. It was shut down briefly due to a budgetary shortfall and reopened in Tel Aviv at the beginning of 1923 under the editorship of Moshe Glickson, who held the post for 15 years.^[18] The Tel Aviv municipality granted the paper financial support by paying in advance for future advertisements.^[20]

Salman Schocken, a wealthy German Jewish Zionist who owned a chain of department stores in Germany, bought the paper in 1937. His son, Gershom Schocken, became the chief editor in 1939 and held that position until his death in 1990.^[21]

Until August 2006, the Schocken family owned 100% of the Haaretz Group, but then the German publisher M. DuMont Schauberg acquired 25 percent of the shares.^[22] The deal was negotiated with the help of former Israeli ambassador to Germany Avi Primor.^[23]

On 12 June 2011, it was announced that Russian-Israeli businessman Leonid Nevzlin had purchased a 20% stake in the Haaretz Group, buying 15% from the family and 5% from M. DuMont Schauberg. This means that the Schocken family now owns 60% and M. DuMont Schauberg and Leonid Nevzlin have 20% each.^[24]

Management[link]

The newspaper's editorial policy was defined by Gershom Schocken, who was editor-in-chief from 1939 to 1990. The current editor-in-chief of the newspaper is Aluf Benn, who replaced Dov Alfon in August 2011.^[25] Alfon's predecessor, David Landau, succeeded Hanoch Marmari^[26] and Yoel Esteron in April 2004. Charlotte Halle became editor of the English Print Edition in February 2008.

Editorial policy and viewpoints[link]

Haaretz describes itself as broadly liberal on domestic issues and international affairs.^[27] Other describe it alternatively as liberal,^{[28][29][30][31][32]} centre-left,^[33] left-wing, ^[34][35][36] or even hard left,^[37][38] According to the BBC it has a moderate stance on foreign policy and security issues.^[39] The newspaper's op-ed pages are open to a variety of opinions.^[40]

J.J. Goldberg, the editor of the American The Jewish Daily Forward, describes Haaretz as "Israel's most vehemently anti-settlement daily paper".^[41] US weekly The Nation describes Haaretz as "Israel's liberal beacon," citing its editorials voicing opposition to the occupation, the security barrier, discriminatory treatment of Arab citizens, and the mindset that led to the Second Lebanon War.^[7] Aijaz Ahmad, writing in Frontline, described Haaretz as "the most prestigious Israeli newspaper".^[42]

Criticism[link]

In 2001, the pro-Israel media-monitoring and advocacy group CAMERA claimed that Haaretz fueled anti-Israel bias,^[43] but a 2003 study in The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics found that Haaretz reporting was more favorable to Israelis than Palestinians, and more likely to report stories from the Israeli side.^[44] Many Israelis, however, feel that Haaretz is biased against their own country: in 2002, Israeli author Irit Linur canceled her subscription, accusing Haaretz of an anti-Zionist theme that turns too often to "foolish" and "wicked" journalism,^[45] and in 2009, Roni Daniel, the military and security correspondent for Israeli Channel 2 also canceled his subscription, citing the use of a television review section to criticize his reporting.^[46]

According to its competitor The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz editor-in-chief David Landau said at the 2007 Limmud conference in Moscow that he had told his staff not to report about criminal investigations against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in order to promote Sharon's 2004–2005 Gaza disengagement plan.^[47][48][49]

In March 2010, The Jerusalem Post reported that a pollster was unhappy with the way his poll results regarding Israeli views regarding President Obama were presented in the English edition of Haaretz, which he felt was "misleading", due to the fact that the Hebrew word "inyani" had been interpreted as "fair" instead of "businesslike".^[50] Also in 2010, several columnists at The Jerusalem Post, including deputy managing editor Caroline Glick, criticized Haaretz for its role in the Anat Kamm affair.^[51][52][53]

Internet editions[link]

Haaretz operates both Hebrew^[54] and English^[55] language websites. The two sites offer up-to-the-minute breaking news, live Q&A sessions with newsmakers from Israel, Palestinian territories and around the world, and blogs covering a range of political standpoints and opinions. The English online edition receives an average of two million visitors per month. Both websites have blogs and are open to readers' comments.^[56] The two sites fall under the supervision of Lior Kodner, the head of digital media for the Haaretz Group. Individually, Ruti Zuta is the editor of Haaretz.com (English) and Avi Scharf is the editor of Haaretz.co.il (Hebrew).

Internet blogs and columns[link]

• In September 2009, Haaretz.com launched a blog by Tel Aviv University Professor Carlo Strenger, named 'Strenger than Fiction' ^[57]

• Focus U.S.A.^[58] – Blog by U.S. correspondent Natasha Mozgovaya who replaced Shmuel Rosner as U.S. correspondent in August 2008. Rosner's blog was 'Rosner's Domain' ^[59] and explored Israeli, American Jewish and Zionist issues in the United States.

• 'A Special Place in Hell' is Bradley Burston's award-winning twice-weekly blog on Haaretz.com.^[60]

• Israeli President Shimon Peres formerly blogged exclusively for Haaretz.com.^[61]

Offices[link]

The Haaretz building, a low-slung building in south Tel Aviv, is situated on a street named for the Schocken family. The Haaretz building houses the art collection of Amos Schocken, one of the country's major collectors of Israeli art, some of it politically subversive.^[62]

Notable journalists[link]

Present[link]

Past[link]

Supplements and special features (print edition)[link]

See also[link]

• List of newspapers in Israel
• Economy of Israel
• Culture of Israel

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Problems at Israel's Haaretz: Newspaper Without a Country by Christoph Schult, Der Spiegel, December 31, 2008.
• The Dissenters - Haaretz prides itself on being the conscience of Israel. Does it have a future? by David Reminick, The New Yorker, February 28, 2011

External links[link]

• Haaretz (English)
• Haaretz (Hebrew)
• About Haaretz
• Unofficial Haaretz Mobile website (English)

v t e Newspapers of Israel General Haaretz · Israel HaYom · Israel Post · Maariv · Makor Rishon · Yedioth Ahronoth Financial Calcalist · Globes · TheMarker Non-Hebrew Al-Ittihad (Arabic) · The Jerusalem Post (English, French)  · Vesti (Russian) Haredi Hamodia · Yated Ne'eman Weekly Almadina (Arabic) · B'Sheva · HaIr · Kol HaIr · Kul al-Arab (Arabic) · Novosti Nedeli (Russian) · Zman Tel Aviv

Natasha Mozgovaya (born 1979) is an Israeli journalist, currently Chief US Correspondent for the national daily newspaper Haaretz.

Background[link]

Mozgovaya was born in the Soviet Union in 1979 into a family of two Russian Jewish journalists and immigrated to Israel in 1990. At the age of 11, she published her first piece in a Russian newspaper. At 14, she was writing a weekly satiric column for the Russian-Israeli newspaper "Vesti". In time she advanced to become editor for two supplement magazines at the newspaper and translated several books from Russian to Hebrew.^[1]

Early career[link]

In 2000, Mozgovaya left "Vesti" and became a correspondent for Yediot Ahronoth newspaper, covering a broad spectrum of issues in Israel and all over the world, including the Disengagement from Gaza and the Second Lebanese War; immigration and human trafficking; hostage crises in the Former Soviet Union and North Caucasus conflicts; the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, including interviews with President Victor Yushenko and his partner-rival Yulia Timoshenko; in-depth reports dedicated to the Russian Mafia and Russian oligarchs; features from Chernobyl and Africa, from the post-election riots in Kenya to the AIDS situation in Malawi; Lost Tribes stories from North-Eastern India; the PKK in Kurdistan, etc.

During the reign of Vladimir Putin, Mozgovaya did not just give a voice to regime's official representatives and symbolic figure as Mikhail Gorbachev and Mikhail Kalashnikov; but contributed extensive coverage of the Russian opposition. She published one of the last interviews with the assassinated Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya; interviews with Garry Kasparov, some odious figures such as Edward Limonov, Boris Berezovsky, Chechen exiles as Ahmed Zakaev; widow of the poisoned ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, and many others.

Television[link]

Meanwhile, Mozgovaya anchored several television programs, including the investigative report program "Special Department" on Channel 9, "Osim Ruach", a cultural program on Channel 1, and "Ha-boker ha-Shvii", another cultural series aired on Saturday mornings on Channel 2, aside Daphna Spiegelmann.^[1] On Channel 1 she presented, along with Meni Pe’er, the special "Black Sea in the Heart", dedicated to the victims of the passenger plane that was hit by a Ukrainian missile on its way from Israel to Russia.

In January 2006 she was selected to anchor the 5pm news broadcast on Channel 2 along with Danni Kushmaro, raising high expectations, but her Russian accent gave rise to a public discussion of whether it was an acceptable feature for a news broadcaster of the major channel, and finally Mozgovaya returned to the print press.

From October 2007 she presented the nightly newscast on Channel 9 and starred in the documentary series "Tmol Shilshom", that engages in the history of Israel from 1948, each part dedicated to a different year in history of the country. Although working most of the time in Hebrew, her reports in Russian from the Palestinian territories and Israel were published in various magazines and newspapers in Russia, and one of her blogs was chosen twice as "the best blog" in Russian blogosphere and the "Best Journalistic Blog in Russian" by Deutsche Welle in 2004.

Haaretz[link]

In 2008, Mozgovaya left Yedioth Ahronoth to become the Washington Bureau Chief for Haaretz newspaper in Washington, D.C..^[2] She currently lives in Maryland with her Israeli husband and two children.

Education[link]

Mozgovaya holds a bachelor's degree in Sociology and Anthropology and a master's degree in political science from Tel-Aviv University.^[1]

Social Agenda[link]

Mozgovaya is committed to the promotion of the topics of minorities and representation in the media, and, among other things, was until recently a director on the board of the non-profit organization Agenda. She has lectured numerous times in various Israeli academic and public institutions about cultural differences, immigrants’ media, FSU politics and coverage of conflicts. In 2008, volunteered for Russian language campaign promoting aid centers for victims of sexual abuse.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Natasha Mozgovaya Blog in Hebrew
• Natasha Mozgovaya Blog in Russian

Gideon Levy
Gideon Levy in 2011.
Born	1953 Tel Aviv, Israel
Nationality	Israeli
Education	M.A. Political Science, Tel Aviv University
Occupation	Journalist

Gideon Levy (Hebrew: גדעון לוי‎; born 1953) is an Israeli journalist. Levy writes opinion pieces and a weekly column for the newspaper Haaretz that often focus on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. A notable journalist on the Israeli left,^[1] Levy has been characterized as a "heroic journalist" by some,^[2] by others as a "propagandist for the Hamas".^[3]

Biography[link]

Levy was born in 1953 in Tel Aviv, the son of German Jewish immigrants. Levy’s father, Heinz (Zvi) Leowy, who earned a law degree from the University of Prague, fled the Nazis in 1939. He spent six months on a refugee boat that was turned away from many ports until reaching Mandate Palestine.^[4] He ran a bakery and later worked as an office clerk.^[5] Levy attended Public School Alef. Levy and his younger brother Rafi would often sing together, notably songs composed by Haim Hefer.^[6] During the Six-Day War, the street adjacent to his home was hit by Arab artillery.^[7] Levy describes his political views as a teenager as typically mainstream. "I was a full member of the nationalistic religious orgy. We all were under the feeling that the whole project [of Israel] is in an existentialistic danger. We all felt that another holocaust is around the corner."^[8]

Levy resides in the Ramat Aviv neighborhood of Tel Aviv (on the lands of Sheikh Munis),^[9] and is a divorced father of two.^[10]

Journalism and media career[link]

In 1974, Levy was drafted into the Israeli Defense Forces where he served as a reporter for Israel Army Radio. From 1978 to 1982 he worked as an aide to Shimon Peres, then leader of the Israeli Labor Party. In 1982, he began to write for the Israeli daily Haaretz. In 1983–1987, he was an assistant to the editor-in-chief.^[10] Despite his coverage of the Israeli-Arab conflict, he speaks no Arabic.^[10] He has written a column called "Twilight Zone" about the hardships of the Palestinians since 1988. In 2004, Levy published a compilation of articles entitled Twilight Zone – Life and Death under the Israeli Occupation.^[11] With Haim Yavin, he co-edited Whispering Embers, a documentary series on Russian Jewry after the fall of communism. He hosted A Personal meeting with Gideon Levy, a weekly talk show that was broadcast on Israeli cable TV on channel 3,^[10] and has appeared periodically on other television talk shows.

Levy has said that his views on Israel's policies toward the Palestinians developed only after joining Haaretz. "When I first started covering the West Bank for Haaretz, I was young and brainwashed," he said in an interview.^[12] "I would see settlers cutting down olive trees and soldiers mistreating Palestinian women at the checkpoints, and I would think, 'These are exceptions, not part of government policy.' It took me a long time to see that these were not exceptions – they were the substance of government policy."

In an interview, he said he doubts that any other newspaper in Israel apart from Haaretz would give him the journalistic freedom to publish the kind of pieces he writes.^[10]

Views and opinions[link]

Levy defines himself as a "patriotic Israeli."^[13] He criticizes what he sees as Israeli society's "moral blindness" to the effects of its acts of war and occupation. He has referred to the construction of settlements on private Palestinian land as "the most criminal enterprise in [Israel's] history".^[14] He opposed the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, and the view that civilian casualties were inevitable. In 2007, he said that the plight of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, then under Israeli blockade, made him ashamed to be an Israeli.^[15] "My modest mission is to prevent a situation in which many Israelis will be able to say 'We didn't know'," said Levy in an interview.^[8]

Levy supports unilateral withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories without concessions. "Israel is not being asked 'to give' anything to the Palestinians; it is only being asked to return – to return their stolen land and restore their trampled self-respect, along with their fundamental human rights and humanity."^[16]

Levy wrote that the Gaza War was a failed campaign and its objectives were not achieved. "The conclusion is that Israel is a violent and dangerous country, devoid of all restraints and blatantly ignoring the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, while not giving a hoot about international law," he wrote in an editorial.^[17]

In 2010, Levy described Hamas as a fundamentalist organization and holds it responsible for the Qassam rockets fired at Israeli cities: "Hamas is to be blamed for launching the Qassams. This is unbearable. No sovereign state would have tolerated it. Israel had the right to react."^[13] He is against boycotting Israel: "I am an Israeli who does not boycott Israel so I cannot call on others to do so."^[13]

Praise and criticism[link]

Levy's writing has aroused controversy. His reporting has earned him numerous awards, including the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award in 1996 by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel^[18] for promoting human rights, the Anna Lindh foundation journalism award in 2008 for an article he wrote about Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces,^[19] and numerous other awards for his writing.^[10] In 2012, Levy won the Peace Through Media Award at the 8th International Media Awards in London.^[20] He has been described as "a powerful liberal voice" by The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman^[21] and praised by Johann Hari of The Independent as "the heroic Israeli journalist".^[2] Journalist and literary critic Nicholas Lezard in his review of Levy's book The Punishment of Gaza described him as "an Israeli dedicated to saving his country's honour".^[22] He has been profiled in Le Monde^[23] and Der Spiegel.^[10][24] "He has a global name. He may be [one of] the most famous and the most invited journalists in Israel", wrote Israeli journalist Ben Dror Yemini.^[25]

On the other hand, his opponents criticize him for being anti-Israeli, and for supporting Palestinian radicalism. "Is it wrong to ask of reporters in a country that is in the midst of a difficult war to show a little more empathy for their people and their country?" asked Amnon Dankner of the Maariv newspaper.^[26] Ben Dror Yemini, the editor of the opinion page of Maariv, called Levy one of the "propagandists for the Hamas".^[3] Itamar Marcus, the director of Palestinian Media Watch, writes in the website of Arutz Sheva, a publication supporting the Israeli settlers in the West Bank, "[One of] the current Israeli heroes [of the Hamas], from whom the Palestinians garner support for their ways, [is] Gideon Levy ..."^[27] Arutz Sheva also lambasted Levy's article about the Jerusalem bulldozer attack in Jerusalem in 2008, which was translated into Arabic on a Hamas website.^[28] In 2006, Gideon Ezra, Israel's former deputy Minister of Internal Security, suggested that the General Security Services should monitor Levy as a borderline security risk.^[29]

Israeli novelist Irit Linur set off a wave of subscription cancellations to Haaretz in 2002, when she wrote an open letter to the paper cancelling her own subscription.^[30] "It is a person's right to be a radical leftist, and publish a newspaper in accordance with his world view... However Haaretz has reached the point where its anti-Zionism has become stupid and evil," she wrote.^[30] She also accused Levy of amateurism because he does not speak Arabic.^[31][32]

Other public figures also cancelled their subscriptions, including Roni Daniel, the military and security correspondent for Israeli Channel 2.^[33] Haaretz's publisher, Amos Schocken, expressed puzzlement at Linur's letter, describing his newspaper as "exceedingly Zionist" and defending Levy's reports as "a description of the effects of the Israeli occupation in the territories".^[30] Levy himself joked that there is a thick file of anti-Levy cancellations in the Haaretz newsroom.^[24]

Published works[link]

Books[link]

• Twilight Zone – Life and Death under the Israeli Occupation. 1988–2003. Tel Aviv: Babylon Printing, 2004 ISBN 978-965-512-062-2, OCLC 646289069
• The Punishment of Gaza, Verso Books, 2010, ISBN 978-1-84467-601-9

Gideon Levy at the International Media Awards 2012

Awards[link]

Gideon Levy was awarded the Peace Through Media Award at the eighth annual International Media Awards on 5 May 2012.^[34][35]

Articles[link]

• "Ship of Fools" in: Moustafa Bayoumi. "Ship of Fools". Midnight on the Mavi Marmara. OR Books. ISBN 978-1-935928-01-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=UeNR74r9InEC&pg=PA75&dq=gideon+levy&hl=en&ei=HIW7TNPfN4OClAeSjq3PDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=gideon%20levy&f=false. 
• "Due Process" in: Roy Gutman, David Rieff, Anthony Gary Dworkin, ed. (2007). "Due Process". Crimes of war: what the public should know. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-32846-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=j9vi7eEX_1QC&pg=PA167&dq=gideon+levy&hl=en&ei=HIW7TNPfN4OClAeSjq3PDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=gideon%20levy&f=false. 

References[link]

External links[link]

• Interview with Levy on PBS (2003)
• Selection of articles by Levy
• Gideon Levy's Official Lecturer Page
• An open letter to Gideon Levy By A.B. Yehoshua, Haaretz 16/01/2009
• An open response to A.B. Yehoshua By Gideon Levy
• "Interview with Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy", Am Johal, Worldpress.org, 19 September 2010

Aluf Benn (Hebrew: אלוף בן‎, born 1965) is an Israeli journalist, author and editor-in-chief^[1] of the liberal Israeli national daily Haaretz.

Born in Ramat HaSharon in 1965 he was originally named Aluf Bomstein, son of Atida and 2010 Israel Prize poet laureate Aryeh Bomstein (who publishes under Aryeh Sivan). His unique name, Aluf ("General"), was received in memory of his uncle General Horowitz who was killed in action in the Gaza Strip during the Israeli retribution operations of 1955.^[2]

Benn holds an MBA degree from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a degree from Tel Aviv University.^[1]

He began working for the paper Ha'Ir in 1986, and Hebraicized his surname Bomstein to Benn. In 1989, he moved to the newspaper Ha'aretz, where he served in various roles, including night editor, investigative reporter, head of the news division and wrote on security matters.

His articles have been published in a variety of international newspapers, including The New York Times, The Guardian, Foreign Affairs and Newsweek.

On August 1, 2011, he was appointed editor-in-chief of Haaretz.^[3]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Column archivve at Business Insider
• Column archivve at Foreign Affairs
• Column archive at The Guardian
• Column archive at Ha'aretz
• Column archive at The National Interest
• Column archive at Salon
• Aluf Benn on Charlie Rose
• Aluf Benn at the Internet Movie Database
• Aluf Benn at Journalisted
• Why Won’t Obama Talk to Israel?, Aluf Benn, The New York Times, July 27, 2009
  • White House response