Our Land

Our Land was an Israeli children’s weekly published for more than three decades, from January 31, 1951, until 1985. It was founded at the request of Amos Schocken, then a child, who asked his father Gershom Schocken—the publisher and editor of Haaretz—to create it. From the beginning, the weekly aimed to be more than a collection of stories and diversions. It gave children aged roughly nine to thirteen a place to read, write, observe their surroundings, and take part in the life of a newspaper.

A Children’s Weekly with Its Own Voice

Owned by the Schocken family, Our Land published stories, poems, articles, and features on nature, society, and culture. Alongside the work of established writers and adult editors, it printed material by young contributors known as “little journalists”. These children wrote about their surroundings and brought their own perspectives into the pages of the weekly.

This approach made readers active participants rather than a passive audience. Our Land encouraged debates among readers, reports on observations of nature close to home, correspondence, and mutual visits between children, including contacts with what the paper called “minority children.” Once a year, it also published an issue made up of work by its young readers. In this way, the weekly created a space where children not only consumed culture but also contributed to it and learned how to take part in a written public conversation.

Writers, Serial Stories, and Generations of Readers

The weekly served as an important literary home for serial fiction and writing for young people. Pinchas Sadeh wrote for it regularly for nearly twenty years, sometimes using the pen names S. Pinchas and Yariv Amatzya. In the 1970s, Galila Ron-Feder’s series of “Zion” stories became a notable feature. By presenting these works week after week, Our Land introduced children to sustained narratives, recurring characters, and the anticipation of following a story over time—experiences that helped shape reading habits for generations.

The paper also provided an early platform for emerging writers. Karmi Katz-Bak, for example, published her first poems in the weekly as a child. Her example reflects the publication’s broader role: it was not only a place where children encountered literature, but also a place where young readers could try writing and be recognized as creators.

Encouraging Curiosity and Responsibility

Our Land did not avoid subjects considered sensitive for children. In April 1957 it published an article titled “How Babies Are Born,” prompting a debate among pupils and parents over whether children should be told the whole truth. The decision to raise the subject reflected a serious view of young readers: children’s journalism could ask difficult questions, encourage discussion, and open a conversation between children and adults.

One of the weekly’s distinctive initiatives was its declaration of “Mother’s Day” as a new Hebrew observance, accompanied by detailed guidance on how young readers could mark it. The project connected the newspaper with family and community life and showed how a children’s publication could inspire activity beyond its pages.

Its Place in Israeli Education and Journalism

In 1976, the Ministry of Education approved the distribution of six children’s and youth newspapers in schools as part of an effort to encourage newspaper reading. Our Land was among the publications approved. The decision reflected the educational value attributed to children’s journalism: it encouraged reading, introduced young people to current affairs, and gave them practice in thinking, writing, and expressing an opinion.

By the beginning of the 1980s, Israel’s children’s-newspaper market had become crowded, and the weekly’s readership was declining. In April 1985, Our Land merged with Davar for Children and Mishmar for Children to form a new weekly, Kolנו—Kolנו—edited by David Fayans and jointly owned by the three newspapers, Haaretz, Davar, and Al HaMishmar. The merged publication initially succeeded, selling about 40,000 copies a week, but its circulation declined in the early 1990s. At the end of 1991, it was sold by the three newspapers to Tz.Tz. Productions, publisher of the competing children’s paper Pilon.

Why this legacy belongs in Moreshet

Our Land belongs in Moreshet because it preserves a significant chapter in Israeli childhood and in the creation of a young reading public in the country’s early decades. Its importance lies not only in the stories it printed. The weekly developed a model of children’s journalism in which young readers wrote, debated, observed their surroundings, and took part in social activity.

Through the writers and serials it brought into Israeli homes, and through the platform it offered to young creators, Our Land strengthened children’s relationship with literature, Hebrew, and the society around them. Its history also illuminates the changing structure of children’s publishing, from an independent weekly to a joint publication, and the shifts in reading habits that followed. Preserving its story on Moreshet.com gives future generations a concrete record of how a weekly newspaper could cultivate imagination, curiosity, and cultural participation.