Haaretz English edition is twenty years old this month!

A letter from Amos Schocken
Publisher, Haaretz

On September 1, 1997, Haaretz English Edition was published for the first time, as part of a joint venture with the International Herald Tribune.

On the front page of the inaugural edition were two reports which encapsulated the very reasons that we, the publishers of Israel’s oldest daily newspaper, decided to venture into English-language publishing.

In the first article, the paper’s diplomatic correspondent reported that the United States was pressing Israel to accept a formula by which settlement expansion would be limited to existing communities. The second article reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been seeking a private donation to help him pay an outstanding debt to the lawyer who had represented him in court.

Two decades later, despite the best efforts of many courageous people and organizations, and notwithstanding spectacular advances in many fields, Israel is no nearer a solution to many of its most pressing problems.

One of the charges most often levelled against the voices of opposition in Israel is that they ‘air the country’s dirty laundry’ in public – and in English. They are told that to do so is treasonous and feeds the monster of anti-Semitism.

Haaretz is proud to be one of the few critical voices in Israel – and in English – speaking out against injustice. We believe that we are serving the best interests of our country, which we love, and that our reporting, our analysis and our commentary enrich the discussion and deepen our readers’ understanding of hugely complex issues. Our writers – in English and Hebrew – are Israel’s most thought-provoking and original and our digital platforms are updated around the clock by two news desks.

In today’s climate, the voice of Haaretz is more important than ever before, both here in Israel and in the United States, where recent events are of grave concern to Jews in both countries. That is why it is just as important for Haaretz’s voice to be heard in English.

With your continued support, we will continue to produce the kind of journalism that is vital in these perilous times. We will continue to create cutting-edge multimedia content on all our platforms and we will continue to invest in making our apps and websites even better.

Yours faithfully,

Amos Schocken
Publisher, Haaretz