About Einayim

Einayim

Einayim, whose Hebrew name means Eyes, is a Hebrew-language children's magazine edited by Tamir Rauner and published in Jerusalem, Israel. First published in November 1994, it is a 64-page magazine for readers aged about 6 to 13, built around a simple and distinctive idea: every issue is devoted to a single theme. A special issue might take water, air or a mirror as its subject, and explore that subject through photographs, drawings, illustrations, stories, poems, comics, questions and riddles. The texts are partially vowelised, a typographic choice that helps young Hebrew readers who are still mastering unpointed text. High-quality visuals and texts have been its hallmark from the first issue onward.

First issue in November 1994

The first issue of Einayim, whose theme was paper, was published in November 1994 as a younger brother to the Mishkafayim magazine. Mishkafayim, meaning Spectacles, was a Hebrew-language art magazine published by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem from 1987, and Tamir Rauner was its founding editor. In 1994, after Mishkafayim had appeared for seven years, Rauner launched Einayim as a children's magazine with an outlook similar to that of Mishkafayim: multidisciplinary, visual, curious and respectful of its readers' intelligence. The family resemblance was in the names themselves, spectacles and eyes, and in the method, which treated a theme as something to be looked at from many angles at once rather than taught from a single direction.

Israel Museum beginnings and the Haaretz partnership

The magazine's first three issues were published in cooperation with the youth wing of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, after which the publisher, Rauner, partnered with the Haaretz Group to publish the magazine. The museum connection mattered. The youth wing of the Israel Museum was the home of Mishkafayim, and it gave the new children's title an educational and artistic pedigree from its first issue. The later partnership with the Haaretz Group placed Einayim within one of Israel's established newspaper publishing houses, giving a small, carefully made children's magazine the production and distribution support of a major group while Rauner remained its editor. The magazine is listed in Israeli directories among the country's education and children's magazines, described as a Hebrew magazine for children aged 6 to 13.

One theme for every issue

Each issue of Einayim is devoted to a theme, such as water, air or mirror. That single decision organizes everything else in the magazine. Articles, photographs, illustrations, stories and activities all return to the same subject, so a child reads about one thing in many registers: factual, imaginative, visual and playful. The second issue, published in May 1995, took colour as its theme. A theatre issue, whose cover is reproduced in reference accounts of the magazine, shows the range the format allows, from stagecraft and costume to the experience of watching a play. The thematic structure also makes back issues durable: an issue about paper or water does not date in the way a news magazine dates, and the magazine provides a special binder designed to preserve the issues and prevent them from getting torn or lost, treating each copy as something to keep rather than discard.

Reading Hebrew: partially vowelised text

The texts in Einayim are partially vowelised. Hebrew is normally printed without vowel points for fluent adult readers, which makes the transition from fully pointed school texts to ordinary print a real obstacle for children. Partial vowelisation meets readers aged about 6 to 13 at exactly that transition: enough pointing to keep difficult words readable, enough unpointed text to build confidence. Combined with the magazine's 64-page format and its heavy use of photographs, drawings and illustrations, the typography marks Einayim as a magazine designed from the reader's side of the page. It assumes children will linger over pictures, reread favourite pages and return to an issue after its month has passed, which is why the preservation binder is part of the product rather than an accessory.

Regular columns and reader participation

Einayim has many regular columns, and several of them are built around children's own contributions. A question-and-answer column in which Iris Baum-Ronen, Nira and Neil Menussi answer questions that children ask them also features poems that children wrote on the issue's theme; the questions are not necessarily about the issue's theme, and the column first appeared in May 1995 in the second issue, whose theme was colour. Other long-running features recorded for the magazine include The World through My Eyes, The Unfinished Comic Strip, The Unfinished Story, Draw Me a Picture, My Photograph, New Friends and With Closed Eyes. The unfinished story and unfinished comic strip formats invite the reader to complete what the magazine starts, turning a printed magazine into a two-way exchange between editors and children.

I Have a Riddle

Several riddles are published in every issue, in a column called I Have a Riddle, which has appeared since the first issue, whose theme was paper, was published in November 1994. The riddles sometimes include a riddle on the content of the magazine or the page numbers. Usually only four riddles about the issue's theme are published. The subsequent issue contains the answers to the riddles and the names of the children who won prizes for solving them correctly. That rhythm, riddle in one issue and named winners in the next, gives young readers a reason to buy, keep and compare consecutive issues, and it publicly credits children by name in print, a powerful motivator for the magazine's age group and a small ceremony of recognition repeated month after month.

Pand, Maniera and the books from the magazine

Several books have been published based on columns in the magazine. Maniera the Witch features all of the stories that Ronit Heyd wrote about a witch named Maniera between 1994 and 2002. Pand is an anthology of all the comic strips about Pand the Red that appeared between 1994 and 2006 and were written by Tamir Rauner and drawn by Noam Nadav. The existence of these collections says something important about the magazine's content: its serial fiction and comics ran long enough, and were loved enough, to sustain book publication. A comic strip that runs for twelve years inside a children's magazine becomes part of its readers' childhoods across an entire generation of siblings, and collecting Pand the Red between covers acknowledged that the magazine's invented characters had lives beyond any single themed issue.

Einayim and Mishkafayim

Einayim cannot be understood apart from Mishkafayim. Rauner founded Mishkafayim in 1987 and edited it for nine years; for its first two years it was a joint project of the Israel Museum's youth wing and the weekly Koteret Rashit, and after that title closed, Yedioth Ahronoth became the partner from the sixth issue onward. In 1996, after two years of editing both magazines, Rauner left Mishkafayim to concentrate on the younger title, and Smadar Tirosh replaced him. Mishkafayim later became Muza under Monica Lavi in 2000 and ceased publication in 2001. Einayim, the younger brother, outlived the elder: the children's magazine carried forward the founding editor, the museum-born visual approach and the belief that a magazine could be an artwork in itself, translated for readers who were still learning to read.

Place in Israeli children's publishing

Einayim holds a distinctive place in Israeli children's publishing because it refuses the two easiest models for a children's magazine: it is neither a comic with articles attached nor a school textbook in disguise. A 64-page, single-theme, richly illustrated Hebrew magazine, partially vowelised, edited continuously by its founder, born in a museum youth wing and later published with the Haaretz Group, it treats children aged 6 to 13 as curious readers who can sustain attention on one subject for an entire issue. Its riddles, unfinished stories, children's poems and long-running comic strips make readers into contributors. In a small Hebrew-language market, sustaining such a magazine since November 1994 is itself the clearest evidence of the loyalty it built with children, parents and teachers alike.