Makor Rishon

Makor Rishon is an Israeli newspaper founded in July 1997 to create an independent publication with a Jewish-national character. Over the course of its history, it developed from a small weekly struggling for financial survival into an influential voice in Israel’s public conversation and an important platform for journalism, literature, culture and Jewish thought. Its pages have addressed current affairs alongside Jewish identity, Israeli society, halakhah, literature and intellectual life, helping shape discussion within the national-religious public and reaching readers well beyond it.

Founding, crisis and renewal

The initiative to establish the newspaper is attributed to Rabbi Shmuel Tal, who was also among its early owners. Emmanuel Shilo served as its first editor. The practical work of founding the paper was undertaken by the Listenberg family, a religious-Zionist family involved in the diamond business and based in Belgium and Tel Aviv. Journalist Meir Uziel was initially recruited to build the project, bringing in Michael Rozolio and Yoni Ariel. Rozolio had worked for Yedioth Ahronoth, the Second Authority for Television and Radio, and Radio Kol HaYam HaRed; Ariel had been the economic editor of The Jerusalem Post. The newsroom was established in the offices of Israel Publications in Jerusalem’s Givat Shaul neighborhood and included both religious and secular journalists and editors.

In its early years, the paper was also edited by Meir Uziel and Ofer Shapira, both secular editors. From the outset, Makor Rishon sought to articulate a distinctly Jewish journalistic identity without limiting itself to a narrow readership. Its financial position, however, deteriorated rapidly. Low revenues led to its closure at the end of October 1999, when the owners declared bankruptcy.

In December 1999, the newspaper was relaunched through a company called New Makor Rishon. This structure allowed its purchaser, Dr. Michael Karish, to benefit from the publication’s reputation without assuming its previous debts. Karish worked to expand the subscriber base and establish a sustainable business, but after approximately four years he sold the paper, in 2003, to businessman Shlomo Ben-Zvi. Ben-Zvi’s acquisition was backed by the family of British Jewish philanthropist Conrad Morris.

Under Ben-Zvi, the newspaper underwent a major transformation. It substantially expanded its number of pages and supplements, recruited prominent writers and adopted a broadsheet format. In 2007, after Ben-Zvi acquired the veteran newspaper HaTzofe, the two publications were merged and the daily edition appeared under the name Makor Rishon–HaTzofe. Yoav Sorek was initially appointed editor of the daily edition, followed by Ariel Kahana. The newspaper thus grew from a relatively small weekly into a system that attempted to offer daily journalism, commentary and a broad range of supplements.

The daily edition and the digital experiment

In June 2009, the paper announced a daily digital edition that would be distributed to subscribers by email at midday, with an investment of approximately half a million shekels. The special edition employed 35 people, operated for about two months and ended with its final issue on July 29, 2009. Although short-lived, the initiative reflected the search for new journalistic models during a period of upheaval in both print and digital media.

In September 2012, Ben-Zvi acquired the newspaper Maariv and integrated Makor Rishon writers into it and into the nrg website. The close relationship between the two systems deepened their financial crisis, and in March 2014 both newspapers entered insolvency proceedings. On March 30, 2014, the Jerusalem District Court approved the sale of Makor Rishon to Israel Hayom for 14 million shekels and the sale of the nrg website for 3 million shekels. The acquisition was approved after review by the antitrust commissioner. On September 23, 2014, the newspaper’s final daily issue appeared; since then, Makor Rishon has been published as a weekend newspaper.

The newspaper’s content continued to appear on nrg until that site closed in January 2018, after which it was published on a new Makor Rishon website. The nrg archive, including articles originally published by Makor Rishon, remained available online under the newspaper’s domain. According to a January 2018 TGI survey, weekend exposure stood at 3.8 percent.

A home for literature and Jewish thought

One of Makor Rishon’s most significant contributions to Jewish culture is its Shabbat supplement, published since 2004. Yoav Sorek edited the supplement from its establishment for many years; it was later edited by Rabbi Elhanan Nir, while Dr. Shmuel Faust edited its book-review section. Shabbat combines Jewish thought, Torah reflection, literature and art with broad engagement in general culture. It created a regular forum in which novelists, poets, translators, scholars and religious thinkers could publish for a wide readership.

For many years, the supplement ran to approximately 24 pages and went well beyond ordinary current-affairs commentary. It published short stories and poetry, reviews of books and music, essays on the weekly Torah portion, discussions of Jewish intellectual concepts, surveys of journals from around the world and writing about Jewish communities worldwide. Contributors and columnists mentioned in the source material include Shalom Rosenberg, Yonatan Berg, Amichai Hasson, Haya Deutsch, Ze’ev Shviedel, Admiel Kosman and Rabbi Eliyahu Birnbaum. Each cover featured a work of art, either a painting or photograph, alongside a quotation, linking Jewish tradition with a broad artistic and cultural language.

Other supplements and projects appeared over the years. HaShavua, published from January 2005 to February 2006, offered cultural content and television and theater listings. Israeli Friday was a biweekly magazine supplement devoted to current affairs and feature writing. The paper also published Shabbat HaGadol, an extended thought supplement that appeared three times a year, and Mekori, a free Sabbath leaflet distributed in synagogues with abridged articles and additional columns. Sections devoted to economics, sports, law, religious law and halakhah were likewise added, reshaped or incorporated into the newspaper’s changing structure.

A presence in Israeli public life

The importance of Makor Rishon cannot be measured only by circulation or by the survival of a particular newspaper format. For nearly three decades, it offered a platform to Jewish, Israeli and cultural voices that did not always find an equivalent home in the general press. It enabled religious and secular readers to encounter one another’s worlds and connected everyday public debate with questions of identity, faith, halakhah, literature and culture.

The newspaper’s institutional history also reflects an important chapter in Israeli journalism: the creation of an independent paper, closure and relaunch, the transition from weekly to daily publication, an early digital experiment, merger with an older newspaper system and eventual return to a weekend format. Through these changes, it retained its ambition to speak from a Jewish-national perspective while participating actively in Israeli society. According to the supplied material, its editor-in-chief is Hagi Segal.

Why this legacy belongs in Moreshet

Makor Rishon merits inclusion in Moreshet because it documents and helped shape a significant chapter in contemporary Jewish-Israeli journalism. Through news, commentary, literature, art and Jewish thought, it created a forum in which Jewish identity was not a marginal subject but a starting point for discussing society, the state and culture.

The Shabbat supplement and the paper’s other cultural projects made the newspaper an important institution connecting the beit midrash, Hebrew literature, the arts and public debate. Its archive and website continue to provide access to writing that records the creators, ideas and arguments that influenced Israeli life and Jewish communities. Preserving the story of Makor Rishon on Moreshet.com therefore preserves more than the history of a newspaper: it preserves the development of modern Jewish-Israeli culture and the public space in which that culture was debated and created.