Mishpacha (Weekly)

Mishpacha is an Israeli Haredi Jewish weekly founded in December 1987 as Mishpacha: The Jewish Home Monthly. Within several years, the publication developed from a monthly magazine into a weekly with a substantial readership in Israel and among Jewish communities abroad. Alongside its coverage of Torah life, family, education and community affairs, it created a Haredi journalistic space for discussions of employment, higher education, security, Israeli society and the relationship between the Haredi public and the wider country.

Mishpacha’s significance lies not only in its circulation or longevity. It addressed the full range of Haredi currents rather than serving a single political party. In doing so, it became a shared forum for diverse readers and offered a magazine-style form of journalism that was relatively open to developments beyond established Haredi circles, while retaining religious supervision and the modesty standards associated with Haredi publishing.

From Monthly Magazine to Influential Weekly

The publication was founded by Asher Zuckerman, who served as its first editor. It initially appeared as a monthly and later adopted a weekly format under the name HaShavua Shel Mishpacha, “Mishpacha’s Week.” Yehuda (Yudke) Paley joined as an investor and eventually became the controlling owner. Following disagreements between the founders, the enterprise split into two competing weeklies: one retained the name Mishpacha, while the other was called HaShavua.

Over time, Mishpacha became one of the most prominent media outlets in Haredi society. According to TGI survey figures from September 2016, the weekly had a reported exposure rate of 24.1 percent and was described as Israel’s most widely read Haredi weekly and Haredi weekend publication. The magazine Ta'amot, also published by Mishpacha, had a reported exposure rate of 6.7 percent in the same survey. The newspaper is owned by Eli Paley.

The publication also sought to extend its reach beyond the weekend. A free midweek edition was distributed between 2011 and 2013, although the project was later discontinued. In addition to the Hebrew edition, Mishpacha developed an English-language edition, and in September 2017 it began publishing in Spanish. These editions reflected the publication’s links with Jewish communities in Israel and around the world.

Magazine Journalism for a Changing Community

The weekly is distributed through sales points in Israel and abroad and through subscriptions. It is presented in a magazine format, generally on coated paper, while Hadashot Mishpacha appears in a tabloid format on newsprint. Periodic supplements address subjects such as housing, marriage and babies, as well as other matters affecting family and communal life.

This structure enabled Mishpacha to combine news reporting, features, commentary, personal stories and practical guidance. For many Haredi readers, it became more than a source of information. It served as a window onto wider Jewish and Israeli developments: changes in the labor market, questions of vocational training and education, the challenges of parenting, relations between community and state, and national events affecting Israeli society as a whole.

Editorial Policy, Religious Supervision and Haredi Journalism

Mishpacha operated under a religious committee chaired by Rabbi Menachem Cohen, with Rabbi Eliyahu Gut and Rabbi Ephraim Zalman Glinski also serving on it. The editorial staff regarded Rabbi Asher Weiss as its spiritual authority and consulted him on complex matters. The committee reviewed the publication’s religious and ideological content, making spiritual supervision a central part of Mishpacha’s effort to combine modern journalism with commitment to the Torah world.

In keeping with norms common to Haredi journalism, the weekly does not publish photographs of girls and women over the age of three, and female figures in photographs may sometimes be blurred or removed. Within these boundaries, Mishpacha became known for presenting a range of opinions and for featuring rabbis and public figures outside the Haredi community, including figures associated with Religious Zionism. It also engaged critically with Haredi politicians and communal activists, helping create a form of community journalism that was not identified exclusively with a party.

Education, Employment and Public Responsibility

One of the issues that demonstrated Mishpacha’s influence was its treatment of education and participation in the workforce. In the Sukkot 5771 holiday issue, published in 2010, the weekly devoted a special supplement to education and employment in Haredi society. By giving sustained attention to vocational training, family income and the place of yeshiva scholars in the labor market, the publication helped bring practical questions of social and economic life into public discussion within the Haredi community.

During Operation Protective Edge in 2014, the newspaper published photographs of fallen Israeli soldiers together with personal words of appreciation. According to publisher Eli Paley, the decision reflected a sense of Jewish unity that had strengthened after the murder of the three teenagers. Presenting the fallen to a Haredi readership connected the community with a national experience and illustrated the role of journalism in shaping how a community recognizes, remembers and relates to the stories of other Israelis.

National Affairs and Public Figures

Mishpacha has also addressed subjects at the center of Israel’s national agenda. In October 2019, it published a reported interview with Mossad director Yossi Cohen that included comments on security and politics. In September 2020, Channel 12 News broadcast recordings from an interview that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit had given to journalist Yisrael Yoskovitz for Mishpacha’s holiday magazine. These episodes demonstrated that the weekly had become a venue through which prominent figures and issues from Israel’s broader public system reached a Haredi audience.

At the same time, the publication maintained an ongoing dialogue with rabbis, educators and readers about the boundaries of Haredi journalism. That dialogue reflected Mishpacha’s institutional importance: within the Haredi world, journalism is not merely a means of transmitting information but also an institution that helps shape communal norms, priorities and ideas of public responsibility.

Why Mishpacha Belongs in Moreshet

Mishpacha merits inclusion in the archive because it documents and helped shape an important chapter in the history of Haredi society and Jewish journalism in Israel. Since 1987, it has built a substantial media institution that connected Torah life with family, education, employment and current affairs, while providing a nonpartisan forum for different parts of the Haredi public.

Its influence can also be seen in the way it brought practical questions such as vocational training and education into communal discussion and presented national events through a Jewish and community-centered lens. Its English- and Spanish-language editions extended that connection to Jewish communities beyond Israel. Moreshet and Moreshet.com preserve through this profile not merely the history of a weekly newspaper, but the broader story of a community that built its own media institution, public language and expression of Jewish identity in a changing world.