Haaretz

Haaretz publishes news, analysis, opinion, literary material, and cultural coverage for readers in Israel and abroad.[1] Its Hebrew newspaper is based in Tel Aviv, while its English-language edition extends its journalism to an international readership.[1][2] The English edition translates selected Hebrew content and also publishes exclusive articles and analysis for readers outside the Hebrew-language audience.[2] The newspaper identifies its outlook as broadly liberal and progressive in domestic and international affairs.[2]

Within the Israeli press, Haaretz has occupied a position associated with analytical journalism, literary writing, and an influential readership rather than the largest mass circulation.[1][6] Its early audience included established members of the Jewish community, politicians, businesspeople, and intellectuals.[6] Its reputation has rested on quality writing, in-depth reporting, and analysis.[1][2] It is also described as Israel’s oldest daily.[2]

Haaretz is among Israel’s major print publications and among the outlets serving the country’s English-speaking community and readers worldwide who follow Israeli affairs.[7] An undated readership description places it behind Yediot Ahronot and Yisrael Hayom and alongside Ma’ariv, but supplies no circulation totals or reference period.[7] Historical circulation figures, survey exposure rates, website audiences, and paid subscription totals therefore describe different aspects of its reach rather than a single interchangeable measure.[1][8][4]

The newspaper’s predecessor appeared in Jerusalem in April 1918 under British army auspices, bearing the title “News from the Holy Land,” with the English title “The Palestine News.”[3] It was distributed free to Jewish soldiers serving in the British army.[3] At the instruction of the British military censor, “Holy” disappeared from the title by the second issue.[3] A shortage of printing paper prompted the editorial office to move to Cairo within approximately a month.[3]

In January 1919, after the British decided to close their military newspapers, the Zionist movement purchased the paper with financial assistance from the Jewish-Russian philanthropist Isaac Leib Goldberg.[3] Its offices returned to Jerusalem, where Dr. Nissan Turov, selected as editor by the publishers, led its relaunch.[3] The first issue of the relaunched paper appeared on June 18, 1919, approximately two months after publication in Cairo had ceased.[3] Businessmen headed by Goldberg and S. Salzmann established the publication under the name Hadashot Haaretz, and its early contributors included Hebrew writers and journalists recently arrived from Russia.[1]

The relaunched newspaper sought both to inform the Hebrew Yishuv and to advance the vision of a Jewish national home expressed in the Balfour Declaration of November 1917.[3] Its opening editorial presented it as a “daily, General Zionist and progressive” newspaper that Palestine had long awaited.[3] Ze’ev Jabotinsky drew the letters of an early logo, subsequently replaced by a design by Francesca Baruch.[3] Jabotinsky and Ahad Ha’am were among the newspaper’s early contributors.[2]

Hadashot Ha’aretz and Do’ar Ha-Yom both emerged in Jerusalem in 1919.[6] The former expressed a General Zionist orientation, while Do’ar Ha-Yom, founded by the Ben-Yehuda family and edited by Itamar Ben-Avi, represented a more nationalist line.[6] Their styles differed as well: Haaretz favored a reserved presentation, in contrast to its competitor’s sensationalist approach.[6] Haaretz subsequently moved its operations from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv in the early 1920s.[1][2]

Its early journalistic culture drew on the “Odessa school,” an approach associated with late-nineteenth-century Russian Jewish Enlightenment writers.[3] In this conception, a journalist worked as a writer and interpreter, using agency dispatches and explaining their significance rather than concentrating primarily on gathering reports in the street.[3] The model combined scholarly interpretation with a conception of cultural and spiritual leadership.[3] The newspaper’s early editors and journalists, many of Russian origin, brought a liberal-democratic tradition to their work.[6]

Moshe Glickson’s editorial leadership helped establish the paper’s liberal orientation and its reputation for quality writing and a literary supplement.[1] Haaretz had no political patron, sought a conciliatory role in the political disputes of the Yishuv, and operated outside party authority.[6] This distinguished it within a press environment in which party affiliations were important.[6] The paper’s emergence followed the postwar revival of the Hebrew press as the Yishuv grew under British rule.[6]

The paper’s treatment of Hans Herzl’s conversion to Christianity illustrates its engagement with Jewish communal identity during this early period.[9] In connection with events in 1924, it delayed reporting the news for several days before publishing the headline “Hans Herzl is cut off from his people,” framed in black like a death notice.[9] The accompanying language expressed “great pain and sorrow.”[9]

Businessman and Zionist Salman, or Shlomo Zalman, Schocken acquired Haaretz during the 1930s.[1][2] His son Gershom became editor in 1939 and led the newspaper until his death in 1990.[1][2] During Gershom’s tenure, the paper became identified with the liberal wing of the Zionist movement.[1] Its positions included support for free enterprise in an economic environment strongly influenced by socialism, a high priority for human rights, and separation of religion and state.[1] It also supported withdrawal from territories captured in the 1967 war.[1]

After Gershom’s death, his son Amos became publisher and Hanoch Marmari became editor.[1] Marmari helped attract younger and non-Ashkenazi readers, introduced the Gallery culture-and-entertainment section, and added a midweek books supplement.[1] He served as editor-in-chief from 1990 to 2004, followed by David Landau from 2004 to 2008 and Dov Alfon from 2008 to 2011.[2] Aluf Benn took over in 2011.[2] Marmari resigned after the economic section was separated into the editorially independent supplement TheMarker in 2004.[1]

The English-language edition began publication on September 1, 1997.[10] David Landau was its founding editor, and its offering initially included local printing of the International Herald Tribune.[1] The edition was launched in response to growing international interest in Israel and the region.[2] A feature marking its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2022 revisited front pages covering peace processes, terrorist attacks, and elections.[10]

Outside investment broadened the group’s ownership during the following decade.[11][12] In 2006, German publisher M. DuMont Schauberg acquired a 25-percent interest in a transaction valuing the group at approximately $130 million after the investment.[11] The capital raising was intended to finance development and strengthen the company’s financial position.[11] In 2011, Leonid Nevzlin acquired a 20-percent stake at a company valuation of NIS 700 million, with investment funds going into the company.[12] The resulting ownership structure was reported as 60 percent for the Schocken family, 20 percent for DuMont Schauberg, and 20 percent for Nevzlin, who was to join the board.[12] By November 2024, Nevzlin’s holding was reported as 25 percent.[13]

The early editors defined a good newspaper as an honest one capable of independently explaining events, explicitly distinguishing their work from journalism they regarded as sensationalist.[3] They also rejected the idea that the paper should provide an unrestricted forum for every opinion.[3] Their stated position was that freedom of opinion within a newspaper had limits established by its general program, even when that program was as broad as Zionism.[3]

Editorial principles discussed during the 2011 Nevzlin investment described Haaretz as Zionist and supportive of Israel’s existence and strengthening as a Jewish and democratic state.[14] The principles also called for progress in education, science, and culture; respect for human rights; opposition to coercion, including religious coercion; individual freedom within a free market; and efforts toward peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.[14] Publisher Amos Schocken said the agreement preserved those principles, and Nevzlin did not request editorial involvement.[14]

The group’s publishing activities extended beyond the national newspaper.[15] A 2006 description included local newspapers, an interest in Walla!, and the financial website TheMarker.[15] A separate account of the same period also listed a printing press among the group’s assets.[11] Within the newspaper, cultural and literary offerings included Gallery and the books supplement introduced during Marmari’s editorship.[1]

The English edition provided a distinct route to international audiences rather than simply expanding the Hebrew print circulation.[2] In a 2019 commentary, The Jerusalem Post described its readers as including English-reading Jews, Arabs, international audiences, and diplomats.[16] The same commentary illustrated differences between the editions with a Friday issue containing a 28-page Hebrew newspaper and multiple supplements, including an 80-page arts-and-entertainment supplement, compared with a 16-page English newspaper and a 24-page entertainment listing.[16] It also described a New York Times insert in the English offering at that time.[16]

By 2012, Haaretz was the only Hebrew newspaper then offering an English print edition.[17] Digital subscriptions began in 2012 with the English edition.[4] A contemporary account described the English-language website’s paywall as introduced in May, with unlimited digital access priced at $100 annually.[17] English-edition editor Charlotte Halle argued that print revenue alone could not realistically fund the newspaper’s journalism.[17]

The Hebrew website followed with a paid-access model announced in February 2013, making Haaretz the first Hebrew newspaper to charge for website access.[18] Announced subscriptions cost NIS 39.90 monthly or NIS 399 annually; nonsubscribers could read ten articles each month, and print subscribers received website access without an additional charge.[18] TheMarker joined the group’s digital subscription system in 2018.[4] These prices and access arrangements describe the historical rollout rather than current subscription terms.[18]

Financial pressures also affected production and labor relations.[19] On October 4, 2012, neither Haaretz nor TheMarker appeared after journalists called a strike over planned cuts and their exclusion from discussions about them.[19] Employees had voted 126 to 68 in favor of strike action.[19] Staff representatives said management had refused to disclose details of austerity measures and advocated an emergency revenue-raising plan instead of widespread dismissals or forced retirements.[20] Journalist Gideon Levy expressed concern about the newspaper’s survival and warned that closure would harm the journalists more than the publisher.[19]

In 2005, Haaretz’s reported circulation was 70,000 daily and 90,000 on weekends, while the English edition circulated 12,000 daily and 20,000 on weekends.[1] Newspaper-supplied figures for that year put monthly users of its Hebrew and English websites at 700,000 and one million respectively.[1] A 2006 estimate placed the newspaper’s subscriber base at 60,000.[15] A later TGI survey recorded an exposure rate of 3.9 percent in the first half of 2017, unchanged from the first half of 2016.[8]

Paid digital readership expanded across the group’s publications.[4] In 2021, the combined total exceeded 100,000 paying digital subscribers across Haaretz.co.il, TheMarker.com, and Haaretz.com.[4] The same announcement put the sites’ combined audience at approximately 11.7 million unique visitors per month.[4] Those totals covered the group’s three sites, not Haaretz’s English edition alone.[4]

Evidence of international Jewish readership includes a weighted survey of 4,081 Jews in Britain conducted in January and February 2010 and analyzed in a 2013 report.[21] Approximately one-third of respondents had viewed Haaretz online for news about Israel during the preceding month.[21] The survey focused on attitudes toward Israel and may consequently have overrepresented people interested in politics and international affairs.[21] Its findings concern the surveyed British Jewish population rather than the newspaper’s entire international audience.[21]

Within that survey, Haaretz.com and the Jewish Chronicle website were read equally by religious and secular respondents, whereas jpost.com tended to attract more religious respondents.[21] The report interpreted those patterns as broadly reflecting the publications’ political stances.[21] It also noted changes after the survey, including Haaretz.com becoming a subscription service and the arrival of The Times of Israel.[21]

Haaretz’s coverage has supplied material for research into how Israeli media address issues affecting Jewish communities abroad.[22] A study of 1,254 news items and articles about antisemitism in the United States, published during 2020 across American national, American Jewish, and Israeli media in Hebrew and English, counted 32 items on Haaretz’s website against 62 on Israel Hayom’s website.[22] Its searches included “anti-Semitism,” “anti-Semitic,” and the Hebrew word for antisemitism, while excluding social networks, blogs, local media, radio, television, and video services.[22]

The same comparison counted 16 Haaretz online opinion columns about antisemitism in the United States, close to Israel Hayom’s 18.[22] Within the study’s categories, Haaretz published no opinion columns about antisemitism on the political left and one about antisemitism on the right.[22] The comparison identified differences between the outlets in their treatment of antisemitism associated with the political left and right.[22] These counts describe the study’s selected topic, period, and media sample rather than the newspaper’s overall output.[22]

Haaretz also gave attention to the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign before it became a prominent topic across Israeli media.[23] An analysis published in August 2015 identified the newspaper as an exception to generally limited Israeli media attention before June of that year.[23] In June 2015, coverage of the issue became repeated, prominent, and large-scale across Israeli outlets.[23]

Preservation of the newspaper has made its historical journalism accessible as part of the wider Jewish press record.[24] In 2019, Haaretz and the National Library of Israel agreed to digitize issues dating from the paper’s 1919 founding and include them in JPress, the Historic Jewish Press project operated collaboratively with Tel Aviv University.[24] At that time, the project included more than 300 Israeli and Jewish newspaper titles published in 16 languages in countries around the world.[24]

The digitized Hebrew newspaper catalog subsequently listed coverage from April 4, 1918, through October 4, 2026, comprising 28,345 issues and 850,223 pages.[25] Access to some years is restricted to the library building.[25] The collection encompasses both the newspaper’s earliest predecessor and its later development as a Hebrew daily, preserving material across successive periods of Jewish and Israeli public life.[3][25]

Political disagreements within the editorial leadership became evident during the Palestinian Intifada beginning in 2000, with a left-of-center position associated with Marmari and a more left-wing position associated with other board members and Amos Schocken.[1] In a 2019 commentary, The Jerusalem Post also criticized changes in the separation of reporting and opinion, contrasting Gershom Schocken’s distinction between fact and comment with an approach under Aluf Benn that permitted reporters to express opinions.[16]

A more consequential dispute followed Amos Schocken’s remarks at a London conference in 2024.[5] Shareholder Leonid Nevzlin publicly called the remarks “appalling, unacceptable and inhumane”; Schocken subsequently clarified them.[13] On November 24, the government unanimously approved Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi’s proposal for government and government-funded bodies to stop engaging with Haaretz and placing advertisements in it.[5] Karhi’s office linked the measure to articles it considered damaging to Israel’s legitimacy and to the publisher’s remarks.[5]

The decision was approved without appearing on the published cabinet agenda or undergoing customary legal review.[26] In June 2026, the High Court of Justice heard petitions challenging the severing of commercial ties, including advertising and subscriptions for civil servants.[27] The dispute concerned the government’s authority and Haaretz’s argument that the measure constituted a content-based boycott.[27]