Nehemia Strassler

Nehemia Strassler is an Israeli editor, journalist, and economic commentator whose work helped make economic policy part of the country’s everyday public conversation. For decades, through his editing and writing at Haaretz, television appearances, books, and teaching, he explained how taxation, monopolies, government spending, regulation, employment, and welfare affect households and consumers. His influence rests not only on the positions he expressed, but also on his effort to turn technical economic questions into practical civic concerns: who pays, who benefits, how markets operate, and what responsibilities belong to the state.

Early life and education

Strassler was born in Israel in October 1951. He attended Tel Aviv Municipal High School V, where he studied electronics. From 1970 to 1973 he served in the Israel Defense Forces in the anti-aircraft corps in Sinai, in a control unit.

His father, Naftali, served in the British Army during the Second World War and was captured by German forces in Greece. This family history connected Strassler’s later civilian career with the broader Jewish and Israeli experience of the twentieth century.

Strassler earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in business administration from Tel Aviv University. His academic training gave him the tools to analyze economic policy, while journalism enabled him to bring that analysis to a broad public.

Editing and economic journalism at Haaretz

In 1983 Strassler was appointed economic editor of Haaretz. He held that position until the end of 1998, when he became the newspaper’s senior editor for economics and society. In these roles he helped shape coverage of economic policy, structural reform, regulation, competition, relations between government and wealth, and the social consequences of economic decisions.

His journalism was marked by direct language and a consistent effort to connect statistics and policy with the experience of workers, families, and consumers. He wrote extensively about competition, the removal of barriers, the dismantling of monopolies, public-sector reform, and policies intended to encourage employment and growth. At the same time, he supported an active social role for government and greater assistance for elderly people, the sick, people with disabilities, and others unable to support themselves through work.

Consumer transparency and “Don’t Let Them Fool You”

One of Strassler’s most tangible public campaigns concerned price transparency. For approximately ten years he advocated displaying the price on every product, at a time when Israeli businesses were not generally required to attach price labels to individual goods. The campaign succeeded when the Ministry of Industry and Trade, under Minister Natan Sharansky, issued an order requiring shops and retail chains to display price tags on products beginning on July 23, 1998.

The achievement illustrates how journalism can move beyond description and commentary to affect practical rules governing daily life. Clear price labels give consumers information needed to compare products, make choices, and monitor retail conduct. A seemingly routine consumer issue thus became a matter of public policy.

Strassler published two books, including Don’t Let Them Fool You, which dealt with economic and social phenomena and presented his critique in an accessible form. Through his books and columns, he sought to give readers the vocabulary and confidence to understand economic language and the interests shaping the Israeli economy.

Television and teaching

Alongside his work at Haaretz, Strassler appeared as an economic commentator on Israel’s Channel 2. Among other assignments, he presented the segment “Don’t Let Them Fool You,” dealing with economics and consumer affairs, on the television program Ulpan Shishi. Television expanded his audience and brought questions of prices, consumption, and economic policy into a major weekly news setting.

Strassler also contributed to professional education. He taught master’s students at the School of Business Administration at Tel Aviv University and later lectured at the School of Journalism at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. In this capacity he helped future managers and journalists understand the importance of evidence, institutions, economic analysis, and clear public communication.

In 2021 he appeared in the second season of the reality program The Masked Singer Israel as “the Hedgehog,” leaving the competition in fifth place. The appearance revealed a lighter and more entertaining side of a public figure generally associated with journalism and economic debate.

Economic and social outlook

Strassler is associated with a liberal outlook that combines a market economy with a welfare policy. He has argued that competition, private initiative, and openness to imports can improve efficiency and lower prices, while also maintaining that the state has a central responsibility toward people who cannot provide for themselves. He supported initiatives encouraging people to enter the workforce, including higher minimum wages, and advocated greater government support for elderly people, the sick, people with disabilities, and others outside the labor market.

In his writing he repeatedly called for a smaller state budget, lower taxes, and a low deficit as elements of a growing economy, low unemployment, and a strong private sector. He supported privatizing state-owned businesses, reforming the public sector, and breaking up monopolies and cartels, whether controlled by the state or connected to wealthy interests. At the same time, he opposed what he considered excessive benefits for the wealthy and excessive compensation for executives, describing such arrangements as “licensed robbery.”

His assessments of political leaders followed their policies rather than a fixed alignment. He supported Benjamin Netanyahu’s economic policy as finance minister in 2003, but criticized Netanyahu’s economic policy from 2009 onward. His view of the Economic Arrangements Law was complex: he criticized aspects of its use while also emphasizing its effectiveness as a vehicle for implementing change. In 2020 he sharply criticized Finance Minister Israel Katz, and the dispute developed into a series of articles in his weekly Haaretz column.

Infrastructure, development, and public debate

Strassler also participated in debates over infrastructure and development. He expressed skepticism toward environmental organizations and some of their campaigns, and supported developers seeking to advance major projects. He opposed resistance to the Trans-Israel Highway, to Yoav Igara’s tourism complex near the Timna nature reserve, and to the construction of a natural-gas reception facility in northern Israel. These positions reflected his emphasis on growth, employment, infrastructure, and the practical capacity to carry out public projects.

After Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, he published an optimistic vision of the Strip’s future and criticized warnings made by opponents of the policy. He also strongly criticized the commission of inquiry that examined the treatment of residents evacuated from Gush Katif. These interventions formed part of his broader public writing, which linked economic policy, government responsibility, and the consequences of national decisions for ordinary citizens.

Public impact and professional legacy

Strassler’s central contribution has been to treat economics as a matter of active citizenship. Through editing, journalism, television, and teaching, he encouraged readers and viewers to ask how prices are set, who benefits from market structures, what government should do, and what unemployment, poverty, and weak competition mean in real lives. His campaign for price labeling remains a concrete example of sustained journalism contributing to a change that strengthened consumers’ ability to compare and choose.

He is married to Yaffa Strassler, who served as head of the senior management reserve division at Bank Leumi, and they have three children. Alongside his family and public life, he left a lasting mark on Israeli journalism by keeping economic questions at the center of civic discussion—not as matters reserved for specialists, but as issues affecting citizens’ money, rights, opportunities, and future.

Why this legacy belongs in Moreshet

Nehemia Strassler merits inclusion in Moreshet because his career combines journalism, editing, public education, and tangible influence on Israeli civic life. For decades he explained economic questions to a broad audience, advanced public discussion of competition, prices, employment, and welfare, and pursued a campaign that helped bring mandatory product price labeling into force. That change gave consumers information essential to comparison and choice.

His legacy lies not simply in the positions he held or the opinions he published. It lies in the way he connected economics with social responsibility, government policy with family life, and journalism with the possibility of changing institutions and public rules. His profile on Moreshet and Moreshet.com preserves an important chapter in Israeli journalism and in the continuing effort to make economic knowledge a tool of civic participation.