About Etzbeoni

Etzbeoni

Etzbeoni is a Hebrew-language children's magazine published in Tel Aviv, in the Tel Aviv District of Israel, and it holds a distinction no other Israeli title can claim: it is the oldest children's newspaper still published in Israel. Founded in 1952 by the journalist and author Michael Shir and the sculptor Shoshana Shir, it has appeared continuously ever since, passing in the early twenty-first century from its founder to his son Rami Shir, who edits it today and also writes children's stories for its pages. The clean batch record for this rollout lists its city as Tel Aviv and describes it as a long-running Hebrew children's magazine publishing stories, poems, comics and activities for young readers. Etzbeoni, sometimes styled in full as "Etzbeoni: The Newspaper for Children" and in its early years as "Etzbeoni: The Newspaper for the Little Ones," was built for readers aged seven to eleven, and across more than seven decades it has combined fiction, enrichment features, games and, in its earlier decades, a news section lively enough to embarrass Israel's national press.

Founding in 1952 by Michael and Shoshana Shir

Etzbeoni was founded in 1952, in the young State of Israel, by Michael Shir, a journalist and writer, together with Shoshana Shir, a sculptor. The first issue appeared in October 1952. In a detail that later became part of the paper's folklore, the first issue was given no serial number, because its editor did not imagine that he would actually produce further issues. He did, and the paper has been published without interruption since, by the Etzbeoni publishing house. Michael Shir served as its editor for many years and made it a family enterprise in the fullest sense: his mother wrote poems for it, and his son eventually succeeded him. The continuity is central to the paper's identity. Israeli children's publishing has seen many titles come and go with the fortunes of their parent newspapers, but Etzbeoni remained an independent, privately published children's paper, described in the standard listing of Israeli children's periodicals as the country's oldest active children's paper, issued by a private publisher. From the beginning of the twenty-first century, its editor has been Rami Shir, the founder's son, who also publishes children's stories in its pages.

What the name means: Bialik, a torn book and a fifth birthday

The name Etzbeoni, which evokes a little finger or a tiny thumb-like figure in Hebrew, comes from a poem by Haim Nahman Bialik, Israel's national poet, and the story of the naming, as told by the founder's son and current editor Rami Shir, is one of the best-known anecdotes in Israeli children's publishing. On Michael Shir's fifth birthday, Bialik came to the party and gave the child a book he had written, "Kattina Kol-Bo." In the dedication Bialik wrote a poem, but the little boy, who could not yet read though he was very good at tearing, tore and tore until the book was completely destroyed. When Michael Shir grew up, in memory of the event and in honour of Bialik, he decided to name his newspaper after the poet's poem "Etzbeoni." The story appears on the cover record of the first issue, dated October 1952, preserved in reference accounts of the paper. It also captures the paper's founding spirit: Etzbeoni was created by a man for whom Hebrew children's literature was not a market category but a personal inheritance, received, quite literally, from the hands of Bialik himself.

Readers aged seven to eleven and the shape of an issue

Etzbeoni is intended for children aged seven to eleven, corresponding roughly to grades two to five of Israeli primary school. The Etzbeoni publishing house positions the paper for pupils from grade two upward, between its titles for younger children and its puzzle paper for older ones. A typical issue includes stories, enrichment articles on nature, science and history, an English corner and amusements and puzzles. The values framing the contents are documented in the paper's own descriptions: emphasis is placed on subjects such as accepting those who are different, care for the environment, and human and animal rights. The paper is printed on matte chrome paper, is fully vowelised with Hebrew pointing, and is written in simplified language that is easy to understand, features designed for readers who are still consolidating their reading skills. Its writers are educators, children's authors and scientists, a staffing model that reflects its dual ambition to entertain and to teach. In the taxonomy of the Israeli children's press, Etzbeoni is the general-interest paper for the middle years of childhood: old enough for real articles and real news, young enough still to need pointing, large clear presentation and a tone of direct address.

Writers, educators and the paper's literary contributors

The list of writers who have written and write for Etzbeoni connects the paper to the mainstream of modern Hebrew children's literature. Among them are Tamar Bornstein-Lazar, the author of the beloved "Kofiko" books; Zohar Aviv, author of the "Havurat Koah HaMoah" and "Yad HaPele" series; Meira Barnea-Goldberg, author of the "Kramel" books; Tamar Fish Nachshon, and others. Their presence matters because it shows Etzbeoni was not an anonymous factory product but a venue where working children's authors published stories for a known readership. Until the end of the 1970s the paper also published many poems by "Aunt Miriam," Dodah Miriam, the pen name of Miriam (Wolman) Shir, the founder's mother, making three generations of one family contributors to or editors of the paper across its history. The combination of professional educators, scientists and named literary authors gave Etzbeoni its characteristic mixture: a story by a recognised writer on one page, an enrichment feature on an animal, a scientific question or a historical episode on the next, and games to close. For Israeli children of the paper's peak decades, receiving it was an introduction to the idea that reading matter made specially for them could be both pleasurable and serious.

A children's paper that chased the news

What most sharply distinguishes Etzbeoni from other children's magazines is that, in its earlier decades, it behaved like a news organisation. Its news section followed current events with the help of investigative reporters, and it was checked by the military censorship like any other news publication; indeed, the paper's history records that the daily newspapers were obliged to submit material to the censor while the children's paper initially was not, an oversight that produced two of the most retold episodes in Israeli journalism. Founder Michael Shir, a former senior figure in the Israel Air Force who loved reading foreign newspapers and kept good friends at the heart of Israel's technological and military establishment, twice turned that combination of foreign press reading and personal contacts into scoops that the adult press had missed. The National Library of Israel devoted a feature in its librarians' blog to these episodes under the headline "When Etzbeoni Exposed State Secrets," drawing on the paper's own archive and on Rami Shir's account. The stories are told below as they are documented there.

The Ofek 1 scoop of September 1988

On Monday, 19 September 1988, at 11:32 in the morning, Israel launched a satellite into space for the first time, joining the small group of states that had achieved such a launch. Maariv reported the next day that for long months Israel had kept the planned launch in complete secrecy, with only the satellite's planners and a few political figures, including the prime minister and his deputy, let into the secret. In fact, as the National Library's account notes, there was another group that had known for more than two weeks: the young readers of Etzbeoni. The issue of the children's paper that appeared at the beginning of September 1988 had already told them, in large, vowelised letters, that the Israel Aerospace Industries was about to launch a spy satellite, Ofek 1, a fortnight before the launch. The innocent children's paper had beaten every military correspondent in the Israeli media. The explanation lay in Michael Shir's habits and biography: his devoted reading of newspapers from abroad and his friends in the defence-technological world had exposed the secret to him, and he published it. The censor's telephone call was not long in coming. Michael Shir was summoned for a reprimand, and from that moment he was required to submit every issue for approval before printing. His son Rami recounts that the tradition continues decades later: the house sends two copies to the National Library and one copy to the censor.

Missile boats in Haifa port and a second brush with the censor

The romance between Etzbeoni and the censor did not end with the satellite. A few years later, on the National Library's telling, Michael Shir read in an American newspaper that the Israeli Navy had received new missile boats. Around the same time he drove to Haifa port to collect friends arriving from abroad, and his eyes happened to catch the very missile boats he had read about, at the naval base in the city. He photographed them, and he published. A Hebrew Wikipedia account of the paper tells a similar story of Shir photographing the Navy's new missile ships in Haifa and the exclusive publication of a report that censorship had banned elsewhere, after which the daily newspapers quoted Etzbeoni's scoop and the publication drew a severe reprimand from the censorship. On the National Library's version, the censor this time made do with a wagging finger. Either way, the pattern is the point: a vowelised children's paper, edited by a well-connected former air force officer, functioned for a time as an unlikely channel of defence news, and the episodes entered Israeli press folklore precisely because the messenger was so improbable. They also explain why the paper's news section was thereafter supervised as strictly as any adult publication's.

The Etzbeoni publishing house and its sister titles

Etzbeoni is the flagship of a small publishing house that built a ladder of children's papers by age. The house publishes four children's papers: Tzav-Tzav, for kindergarten children aged three to six who do not yet read; Dubon, for children in compulsory kindergarten and first grade who are learning to read and write; Etzbeoni itself, for pupils from grade two upward; and Mishbetzet, a paper of thinking challenges for children, including crosswords and puzzles; the house's list has also included Zbang, a comics monthly for youth. Earlier titles in the family's history included Freak, a computer games monthly published until 2002, and Inyan Hadash, a youth newspaper published until 2003. In a Globes survey of the children's press, the publisher put the house's combined circulation at approaching sixty thousand copies, with Etzbeoni itself at roughly twenty thousand; the same survey recorded the wider market's estimates for all Israeli children's papers together, and the scepticism of industry figures toward publishers' numbers, context that makes the figures best read as the house's own claims. What is not contested is the structure: a single independent house sustaining a graded family of Hebrew children's periodicals around one flagship founded in 1952.

Longevity: Israel's oldest active children's paper

Etzbeoni's deepest significance is its longevity within a tradition much older than itself. The first Hebrew children's periodical, Olam Katan, appeared in the 1890s, and Israel has since produced a long succession of children's papers attached to newspapers, movements and publishing houses, most of them now defunct. The standard listing of Israeli children's periodicals identifies Etzbeoni, published since 1952, as the oldest children's paper active in Israel today, and its own publishing house repeats the description. That survival was achieved without the shelter of a large newspaper group: Etzbeoni is a private, independent publication that outlived movement papers and newspaper supplements alike. It adapted by building sister titles for younger and older readers, by keeping its language pointed and accessible, by recruiting each generation's children's authors, and, in its news years, by treating child readers as citizens entitled to real information. The paper that began without even a number on its first issue, because its editor doubted there would be a second, became instead a fixture of Israeli childhood across more than seventy years, edited first by its founder and then by his son, and still appearing for the seven-to-eleven-year-olds for whom Michael and Shoshana Shir created it.