'Jerusalem Post' publishes new edition of 'Front Page Israel'

Produced for Israel's 60th and the Post's 75th anniversaries, lavish book collects key front pages from 1932 through to 2008.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
jpost front page 88 224 (photo credit: )
jpost front page 88 224
(photo credit: )
To coincide with Israel's 60th birthday and at the culmination of The Jerusalem Post's 75th anniversary year, the Post has published a new edition of its famed "Front Page Israel." The book documents modern Israel's extraordinary history as captured on the front pages of the Post - dating from the earliest issues of what was then The Palestine Post, in 1932, through to 2008. The new edition, which is now going on sale, is the seventh and by far the biggest the Post has produced, running to nearly 400 pages. It includes almost 100 pages added since the previous edition in 1994, covering everything from peace treaties and negotiations to bombings, rocket attacks and war, a prime minister's assassination to papal, royal and presidential visits, an intercepted Iranian arms shipment to the discovery of an Israeli submarine missing for 30 years, the withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza, election victories and defeats, space triumphs and disasters, landmark interviews, scandals, scientific breakthroughs and much more. These new front pages are added to the decades of front page history from previous editions, back to the foundation of the State of Israel - the classic Palestine Post front page that blared delightedly "STATE OF ISRAEL IS BORN" in May 1948 - and beyond. "Front Page Israel" features an opening article from Editor-in-Chief David Horovitz, as well as the editors' prefaces from the previous edition of the book in 2004 (by David Bar-Illan) and the 1978 edition (by Ari Rath and Erwin Frenkel). A brief opening letter from President Shimon Peres calls the Post "always trustworthy, always caring." A note from the Post's CEO, Ronit Hasin, describes the book as "a living record of Israeli progress." In his article, Horovitz notes how profoundly print journalism has changed even in the 14 years since the last "Front Page Israel" was published, with the rise of "instant globalized communication enabled by the Internet." The Internet has liberated the Post, says Horovitz: "A title that began its extraordinary journey in 1932 with a print-run of 1,200 copies," he writes, "is now read by millions upon millions of people the world over... [And] our readers can interact with us, in real time, responding to our content, challenging it." This revolution means the daily print newspaper, once the first draft of history, is now the second draft. The Jerusalem Post's daily paper, Horovitz notes, "is polished further, and its choice of stories and headlines - and their prominence - constitute a permanent record, in contrast to the Web's constant flux, of its reporters' and editors' sense of priority. These are choices that must meet the immediate need to inform, entertain and galvanize our readers each morning, but must also - when viewed weeks and months and years later, in collections such as this - stand the test of time." The latest "Front Page Israel," its editors say, has been compiled with that goal in mind - to serve not merely as a book, but as a piece of Israeli history. (Readers in Israel can call *2423 for purchasing details.)