About National Geographic Israel

National Geographic Israel

National Geographic Israel is the Hebrew-language Israeli edition of National Geographic, the American magazine published by the National Geographic Society and recognised worldwide for its reporting on geography, nature, science, history and cultures, and above all for the quality of its photography. Published monthly from Tel Aviv, the Israeli edition has appeared since 1998 and is one of the longest-running Hebrew editions of an international magazine. It began as a translated edition of the American magazine and developed over time into a publication that also carries original Israeli content, companion titles for children and even a specially adapted edition for the ultra-Orthodox public. In May 2023 it marked twenty-five years of publication with its 300th issue.

Origins and ownership

The Hebrew edition was founded in 1998 by Maariv Holdings, the owner of the Maariv newspaper. The global list of National Geographic editions records the Hebrew edition's first issue in June 1998 and its website at nationalgeographic.co.il. Ownership of the Israeli monthly changed over the years, and its current publisher in Israel is Junior Media Ltd. The edition listed Mirit Friedman as editor-in-chief in the international editions table, while Dafna Raz served as editor of the Hebrew edition during the period when the special ultra-Orthodox edition was launched in 2008. Like its American parent, the Israeli magazine is a monthly, and it organises an annual photography competition in Israel similar to that of the American magazine.

From translation to original Israeli content

In its first years the Israeli magazine included only articles translated from the American magazine. From 2001, original articles dealing with Israel began to appear alongside the translations, giving the Hebrew edition a local voice within the National Geographic format. That combination, translated features from the global magazine together with Israeli nature, science and travel reporting, is the pattern recorded for the edition in reference listings. The parent magazine's reputation rests on illustrated articles about landscapes, history and the far corners of the world; the Society's emphasis on visual storytelling dates to the era of its president Alexander Graham Bell and editor Gilbert H. Grosvenor, and by 1910 photography had become the magazine's hallmark. The Hebrew edition brought that tradition to Israeli readers in their own language.

Traveler and children's companions

The Israeli franchise expanded beyond the flagship monthly. In 2002 a Hebrew edition of National Geographic Traveler began to appear every two months. From 2005 to 2013 the monthly carried a supplement called Olami, intended for children, and in 2013 it was replaced by a Hebrew edition of National Geographic Kids, the children's magazine of National Geographic. In 2021 a magazine called Niflaot Olam, "Wonders of the World," began to appear: a version of National Geographic Kids addressed to ultra-Orthodox children. As of 2024, National Geographic Kids was operating a cooperation with Tarbuta to publish a children's magazine for the Haredi public called Niflaot.

The edition for the ultra-Orthodox public

In 2008 a special bimonthly edition of the magazine was published with content adapted for the ultra-Orthodox public, the product of a cooperation between the Israeli franchise company and Kav Itonut Datit, a religious press line. In preparation for the launch, a special 32-page mini-magazine was distributed free of charge in 100,000 copies inside the newspaper Mishpacha and in direct distribution in shops and kiosks. Yosef Schneider, the initiator of the edition, said the religious public would receive a magazine with a worldwide reputation, edited with great care and with attention to the needs and demands of that public, and expressed the belief that it would become a valuable educational and scientific aid in every Torah-observant home. Dafna Raz, the editor of the Hebrew edition, explained that the edition for the ultra-Orthodox would appear once every two months, with the same characteristics and the same articles as the general edition, but only a selection of them, those suited to the world of content of the ultra-Orthodox public.

Adaptation without changing the science

Raz stressed that the purpose of the special edition was not to censor passages but to present the Haredi public with articles that did not offend particular sensitivities of that public; the examples she gave included the theory of evolution and modesty of the body in anthropological photographs. The guiding line reported at the launch was that sensitive articles would be selected carefully while scientific facts would not be changed. The ultra-Orthodox reader, Raz observed, like anyone who wants to know the world around them, is interested in everything connected with the world of nature, landscapes, distant places, science and medicine, and is no different from others, but has special sensitivities, both in matters of modesty and in other matters, that must be taken into account if people are to bring the magazine into their homes and show it to others to broaden their minds.

Place among Hebrew science magazines

Academic surveys of science communication in Israel note that since the 1990s international science magazines have been published in Hebrew, and that while Popular Science, which arrived in 1994, and National Geographic are still published, other translated titles have not survived in print; Scientific American Israel, published from 2002 to 2017, moved online. National Geographic is described in those surveys as still appearing in Hebrew, and at the time of the ultra-Orthodox edition's launch the magazine was reported to be published in 30 languages, including Hebrew, and read by ten million people every month in most countries of the world, including Israel. Its survival makes the Israeli edition one of the durable bridges between global popular-science publishing and the Hebrew-reading public.

Photography and the yellow frame

The Israeli edition inherits the visual identity of the parent magazine, whose covers are framed by the famous yellow border that has remained even as the oak-leaf decoration and contents listing were removed from the cover over the years. The parent magazine began publishing colour photographs in part of its pages in the early 1930s, when the technology was in its infancy; in the mid-1930s its staff photographers moved to small, light Leica cameras with Kodak's Kodachrome film, and from 1959 photographs appeared on the cover, later enlarged to fill it. After the digital photography revolution the magazine moved to digital equipment for both the printed magazine and its website. Issues of National Geographic are often collected by subscribers and sold in second-hand shops as collectables, a fate the Hebrew edition's three hundred issues share in Israel.

Twenty-five years and three hundred issues

The May 2023 issue of National Geographic Israel marked twenty-five years since the magazine's founding and was its 300th issue. A monthly that began in June 1998 under Maariv Holdings, passed through changes of ownership to its present publisher, Junior Media, added original Israeli reporting from 2001, a Traveler edition from 2002, children's companions from 2005 onward and adapted editions for the ultra-Orthodox public from 2008, had by then become a fixture of Israeli magazine publishing. Its record illustrates the trajectory of the whole National Geographic system of local-language editions, in which the Hebrew edition stands alongside editions in dozens of languages listed by the parent magazine.

The edition today

National Geographic Israel continues to publish in Hebrew from Tel Aviv for the Israeli market, combining translated National Geographic features with Israeli nature, science and travel content. Its website serves the Hebrew edition, and its annual photography competition mirrors the practice of the American magazine. In a Hebrew magazine market in which many translated titles have come and gone, the edition's continuity since 1998, its expansion into children's and community-adapted companions, and its 300-issue milestone in 2023 mark it as one of Israel's most successful international magazine franchises.

Part of a global system of editions

The Hebrew edition's place can be fixed within the parent magazine's own table of editions. The American original, published in the United States, dates its first issue to October 1888; the modern system of local-language editions grew around it, with the Japanese edition first in April 1995, the Italian in February 1998, the Hebrew in June 1998, and dozens more in the following years, from the French and German editions of 1999 to the Arabic edition of 2010. In that table the Hebrew edition stands as one of the earliest of the modern wave, launched the same year as the Italian edition and before most of the European editions, with Tel Aviv as its base and its own website in the national system. Its twenty-five-year survival places it among the durable members of that system.