Davar LaYeladim

Davar LaYeladim was one of the most important and influential children’s publications in the history of Hebrew journalism in pre-state Palestine and Israel. Established within the newspaper Davar, it became far more than a newspaper supplement. For almost fifty years, it served as a home for children’s literature, illustration, learning and conversation with young readers. Through stories, poems, advice columns, nature and study features, and its portrayal of everyday childhood, the weekly helped shape the cultural world of generations of Hebrew-speaking children.

From a Monthly Supplement to an Independent Weekly

In 1931, the editors of Davar decided to create a publication for children. The Children’s Supplement first appeared on October 2, 1931, and continued for five years. In February 1936, Davar LaYeladim began appearing as an independent weekly booklet. This created a regular, widely distributed platform for high-quality literature and educational content addressed specifically to children.

Its first editor and the person who established its character was Yitzhak Yatziv. In addition to editing the publication, Yatziv wrote the regular column In the Circle of Days, which explained current events to children in clear and accessible language. The weekly therefore introduced its readers not only to stories and poems, but also to the social and public realities around them. Yatziv edited the publication until his death in 1947, with Bracha Habas serving alongside him as acting editor.

Later editors included Aharon Ze’ev in 1948, Shimshon Meltzer from 1949 to 1954, Shlomo Tanai from 1954 to 1956, Ephraim Talmi from 1956 to 1970, and Uriel Ofek, who had served as deputy editor from 1951 and became editor-in-chief from 1970 to 1973. During Ofek’s tenure, Arnon Magen and David Paians served as deputy editors. Paians was the final editor of Davar LaYeladim, from 1973 until 1985, with the poet Pesach Milin as his deputy.

Literature, Illustration and Major Creators

The weekly’s central achievement was its integration of journalism, literature and art. Many leading Hebrew writers and poets published work for young readers in its pages, including Eliezer Shmueli, Miriam Yalan-Stekelis, Yemima Tchernovitz, Leah Goldberg, Anda Amir-Pinkerfeld, Rina Shlain, Levin Kipnis, Fania Bergstein, Natan Alterman, Avraham Shlonsky and Dvora Ben-Ner. It also published works by Jewish writers and poets from the Diaspora in Hebrew translation, including children’s poems by Ida Maze, translated for the weekly by editors Shimshon Meltzer and Uriel Ofek.

The painter Nahum Gutman was the publication’s regular illustrator. He did more than provide individual drawings: he helped create a visual language that became inseparable from the reading experience. Gutman published many of his stories in installments in Davar LaYeladim before they appeared as books, including the well-known In the Land of Luvengulu, King of Zulu. The weekly thus became a literary platform for works that later entered the canon of Hebrew children’s literature.

Comics also played an important role. The painter and caricaturist Aryeh Navon created such series as Uri Mori and Uri Kaduri, making reading playful and accessible while bringing text, image and humor together. The publication’s final regular illustrator was Nurit Yuval, who illustrated it from 1973 until the establishment of the children’s weekly Kulanu in 1985.

A Publication Woven into Daily Life

Davar LaYeladim portrayed children’s lives in different periods of the Yishuv and Israel. Alongside literature and illustration, it offered features on nature, schoolwork and advice, addressing children as curious readers with questions, imagination and opinions of their own. The weekly connected home, school and society, and linked the experiences of childhood with the revival of Hebrew and the formation of modern Hebrew culture.

It also encouraged its readers to participate in literary life. In 1947, the editorial board announced two children’s story competitions, offering prizes of 50 and 25 Palestine pounds. The judges included Nahum Gutman, Yaakov Fichman, Yitzhak Avnon, Z. Ariel and Aharon Ze’ev. The initiative expressed confidence in children’s creative abilities and encouraged them not only to read but also to write.

Berl Katznelson, editor of Davar, emphasized the weekly’s importance when he wrote that it nourished “the child and the family and the school not only when it appears, but for many years afterward.” The editors wanted the issues to become a home library. They encouraged readers to preserve the copies, have them bound at the end of the year and keep them for the future. In this way, the weekly became more than a disposable publication: it became a family archive of reading, memory and culture.

The Weekly’s Final Years and Its Continuation

By the beginning of the 1980s, Israel’s children’s-magazine market had become crowded, while the number of readers was declining. In May 1985, Davar LaYeladim merged with the children’s weeklies Haaretz Shelanu and Mishmar LaYeladim to form a new publication, Kulanu, edited by David Paians. The merged weekly was jointly owned by the three newspapers — Haaretz, Davar and Al HaMishmar — and initially achieved considerable success, selling approximately 40,000 copies a week. Its circulation declined in the early 1990s, and at the end of 1991 the paper was sold to Tz.Tz. Productions, which also published the competing children’s paper Pilon.

Why Davar LaYeladim Belongs in Moreshet

Davar LaYeladim merits a place in Moreshet because it documents and embodies a formative chapter in the development of Hebrew children’s culture. For nearly five decades, it gave generations of children access to literature, art, knowledge and a living Hebrew language. At the same time, it provided a platform for creators who shaped Israeli culture. Through its pages, the work of Leah Goldberg, Miriam Yalan-Stekelis, Natan Alterman, Nahum Gutman and many others reached homes, classrooms and families throughout the country.

Its importance cannot be reduced to a list of writers and illustrators. The weekly helped create a community of young readers, connected literature with everyday life and preserved evidence of how children were understood, educated and imagined during the Yishuv, the founding of the state and the decades that followed. It therefore belongs not only to the history of journalism, but also to the history of education, literature and Jewish and Israeli society. Its inclusion in Moreshet.com preserves the publication’s place as a cultural space in which generations of young readers developed memories, literary sensibilities and a sense of Hebrew identity.