The Jerusalem Post

Front page of The Jerusalem Post
Type	Newspaper
Format	Broadsheet
Owner(s)	The Jerusalem Post Group
Editor	Yaakov Katz
Founded	1 December 1932; 88 years ago (1932-12-01) (as The Palestine Post)
Political alignment	Centrist to conservative[1][2]
Language	English French
Headquarters	Jerusalem
Country	Israel
Circulation	50,000 (Weekends: 80,000) (International: 40,000)[3]
Sister newspapers	Jerusalem Post Lite
ISSN	0021-597X
Website	jpost.com
Media of Israel List of newspapers

The Jerusalem Post is a broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. In 1950, it changed its name to The Jerusalem Post. In 2004, the paper was bought by Mirkaei Tikshoret, a diversified Israeli media firm controlled by investor Eli Azur. In April 2014, Azur acquired the newspaper Maariv.^[4] The newspaper is published in English and previously also printed a French edition.

Formerly regarded as left-wing, the paper underwent a noticeable shift to the right in the late 1980s.^[5] From 2004 editor David Horovitz moved the paper to the center, and his successor in 2011, Steve Linde, professed to provide balanced coverage of the news along with views from across the political spectrum.^[6][7] In April 2016, Linde stepped down as editor-in-chief and was replaced by Yaakov Katz,^[8] a former military reporter for the paper who previously served as an adviser to Economy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett.^[9]

The paper professes to be in the Israeli center^[10] with its editorial line critical of political corruption,^[11] supportive of the separation of religion and state in Israel^[12] and against unilateral concessions to the Palestinians. It is also a strong proponent of greater investment by the State of Israel in World Jewry and educational programs for the Jewish diaspora.^[13]

History

The "Jerusalem News"

The first attempt to establish an English-language newspaper in Jerusalem was the "Jerusalem News", established in 1919 under the auspices of the Christian Science movement.^[14]William Denison McCrackan, the associated editor of both the Christian Science Journal and Christian Science Sentinel,^[15] was critical of the Zionist slogan "a land without a people for a people without a land". He said, "We used to read in our papers the slogan of Zionism, 'to give back a people to a Land without a People,' while the truth was that Palestine was already well-peopled with a population which was rapidly increasing from natural causes."^[16] Following the conquest of Palestine by the British Army in 1917, Christian Science interested itself in the affairs of Palestine, first organizing relief work and then with starting a new newspaper. The Jerusalem News paper was originally established in 1919 by Elizabeth Lippincott McQueen, a British-American woman who would later become a women's aeronautics pioneer, and who had in the aftermath of WWI served in war relief work in Palestine under Field Marshal Allenby.^[17] The first issue, on Dec. 9, 1919, bore a congratulatory message from Allenby, then High Commissioner for Egypt.^[18] In February 1920 the British-American writer and journalist Talbot Mundy - McCrackan's co-worker and personal friend - arrived in Jerusalem.^[19][20] There he became the Jerusalem News' editorial assistant, being involved in writing articles, reporting on current events, proof reading, and editing.^[21] Talbot witnessed the increasing conflict between Arab and Jewish populations within the city, and was present during the Nebi Musa riots. McCrackan was the editor. The copies of the Jerusalem News preserved at the Library of Congress begin on Dec. 9, 1919 and cease with no. 151 (June 8, 1920).^[22] The end of the paper's publication was explained by its having been "a wartime publication" and that the start of a British civil administration necessitated a different kind of paper.^[23][24] There was no continuity between this short-lived paper and what would later become "The Jerusalem Post".

1925-1950

The direct journalistic ancestry of The Jerusalem Post can be traced to The Palestine Bulletin, which was founded in January 1925 by Jacob Landau of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.^[25] It was owned by the Palestine Telegraphic Agency, which was in practice part of the JTA even though it was legally separate.^[25] On 1 November 1931, editorship of the Bulletin was taken over by Gershon Agronsky (later Agron), a Jewish journalist who had immigrated to Palestine from the United States.^[26] In March 1932, a dispute arose between Landau and Agronsky, which Agronsky resolved to settle by establishing an independent newspaper.^[25] However, Landau and Agronsky instead came to an agreement to transform the Bulletin into a new jointly owned newspaper.^[25] Accordingly, the Palestine Bulletin published its last issue on 30 November 1932 and The Palestine Post Incorporating The Palestine Bulletin appeared the following day, 1 December 1932.^[25] On 25 April 1933, the masthead was reduced to just The Palestine Post, though the newspaper continued to state its founding year as 1925 for at least a year afterwards.^[27]

16 May 1948 edition of The Palestine Post

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 one commentator, "Zionist institutions considered the newspaper one of the most effective means of exerting influence on the British authorities."^[28]

1948 bombing

On the evening of 1 February 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.^[29] The building also contained other newspaper offices, the British press censor, the Jewish settlement police, and a Haganah post with a cache of weapons. Arab leader Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni claimed responsibility for the bombing, but historian Uri Milstein reported that the bomb had been prepared by the Nazi-trained Fawzi el-Kutub, known as "the engineer", with the involvement of two British army deserters, Cpl. Peter Mersden and Capt. Eddie Brown.^[30][31] Three persons died in the bombing, a newspaper typesetter and two people who lived in a nearby block of flats.^[32] 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.^[29]

Palestine Post offices after car bomb attack, 1 February 1948, Jerusalem

1950-present

In 1950, two years after the State of Israel was declared, the paper was renamed The Jerusalem Post.^[33]

The broadsheet newspaper is published from Sunday to Friday, with no edition appearing on Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath) and Jewish religious holidays. Regular opinion columnists write on subjects such as religion, foreign affairs and economics. As of 2016^[update] the managing editor is David Brinn.^[34] Some of the material is translated and included in the free Hebrew daily Israel Post, of which Eli Azur is a co-owner.

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.^[35]

The Jerusalem Post also publishes a monthly magazine titled IVRIT edited by Dr. Sarit Yalov. Its target audience is people learning Hebrew language and it is described as "an easy-Hebrew" publication, meant for improving basic Hebrew reading skills. It uses the vowel notation system to make comprehension of the Hebrew alphabet abjad simpler.^[36]The Jerusalem Report, now edited by Steve Linde, is a fortnightly print and online glossy newsmagazine.

In 2020, Reuters reported that Jerusalem Post along with Algemeiner, The Times of Israel and Arutz Sheva had published op-eds written by non-existent people.^[37][38] In 2020, The Daily Beast identified a network of false personas used to sneak opinion pieces aligned with UAE government policy to media outlets such as The Jerusalem Post.^[39] Twitter suspended some of the accounts of these fake persons on its own platform.^[40]

Ownership changes

Until 1989, the paper supported the forerunners of the Labor Party. In 1989, the paper was purchased by Hollinger Inc., owned by Conrad Black. A number of journalists resigned from the Post after Black's takeover and founded The Jerusalem Report, a weekly magazine eventually sold to the Post.

Under editor-in-chief David Makovsky, from 1999 to 2000, the paper took a centrist position on defense, but began to reject socialism.^[1] In 2002, Hollinger hired the politically conservative Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal as editor-in-chief. David Horovitz took over as editor-in-chief on 1 October 2004,^[41] returning the paper to a centrist position.^[42] On 16 November 2004, Hollinger sold the paper to Mirkaei Tikshoret Limited, 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.^[43]

In 2011, Horovitz was succeeded by the paper's managing editor, Steve Linde, who professed to maintain political moderation and balance.^[44]Yaakov Katz, the paper's former military analyst and a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, succeeded Linde in April 2016.

Websites

JPost.com

JPost.com was launched in December 1996. Its current version also contains an ePaper version of the daily newspaper, a range of magazines and other web versions of the Group's products.

The site is an entity separate from the daily newspaper. While sharing reporters, it is managed by different teams. Its staff is based in Tel Aviv, while the newspaper offices are located in Jerusalem.^[45]

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.^[46] 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.

JPost.com includes the "Premium Zone", a pay-wall protected area, containing additional Jerusalem Post articles and special features. The site, which was given a graphic facelift in September 2014, recently relaunched its mobile and tablet applications, as well as its special edition for mobile viewing.

Editors

• Gershon Agron (1932-1955)
• Ted Lurie (1955-1974)
• Lea Ben Dor (1974-1975)
• Ari Rath and Erwin Frenkel (1975-1989)
• N. David Gross (1990-1992)
• David Bar-Illan (1992-1996)
• Jeff Barak (1996-1999)
• David Makovsky (1999-2000)
• Carl Schrag (2000)
• Jeff Barak (2000-2002)
• Bret Stephens (2002-2004)
• David Horovitz (2004-2011)
• Steve Linde (2011-2016)^[47]
• Yaakov Katz (since 2016)^[8]

See also

• List of newspapers in Israel

References

External links

• Official website
• Official website (in French)
• Palestine Post--complete searchable contents 1932-1950
• Palestine Bulletin--complete searchable contents 1925-1932