About LaIsha

LaIsha

LaIsha, whose name means "For the Woman" in Hebrew, is an Israeli women's magazine published weekly in Hebrew by the Yedioth Ahronoth media group. Founded in January 1947, it is described by communication scholar Einat Lachover as the country's most popular and longest-running privately owned commercial women's magazine. For nearly eight decades it has combined service journalism on fashion, beauty, food, health, family life and consumer affairs with interviews, personal narratives and reporting on social issues, and its history closely tracks the changing lives of women in Israel from the final years of Mandatory Palestine to the present day.

Origins as a newspaper supplement

The first issue appeared in January 1947 in Mandatory Palestine as Yedioth Ahronoth – LaIsha, a four-page weekly supplement sold with the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. A retrospective published by the magazine in 2004 reported an initial print run of 200 copies and a price of 20 Palestine mils. The opening editorial promised practical information about household management, family budgets, nutrition, childcare, sewing, fashion, health and beauty, alongside discussion of women's participation in public and cultural life. On 23 July 1947 it became a separately sold publication, subtitled "a popular weekly for the home and family", and the editorial of that issue stated that the magazine would reflect the particular roles and problems of women in the Hebrew-speaking public.

The founder and first editor-in-charge was the lawyer Hemda Nofekh-Mozes, who remained associated with the magazine until her death in 1989. Her legal-advice column, Bisvakh Hamishpat, or "In the Tangle of the Law", addressed legal and social questions affecting readers. Day-to-day editing was initially undertaken by Aharon Shamir, who served until 1952, followed by David Krasik, who remained editor until 1979. Early editorials mixed practical advice with views on readers' way of life: one in 1948 advised women in small apartments not to pursue cleanliness at the expense of their peace of mind, and another that year warned readers against submitting to the dictates of Paris fashion.

Early departments and reader guidance

Early departments covered mothers and children, dressmaking patterns, beauty, children's health and cooking, together with interviews and personal stories. A retrospective published for the 4,000th issue also recalled features such as "Figure of the Week" and "These Women", a knitting column and children's photography contests. The advice column Tevat Do'ar, or "Mailbox", established in January 1947, offered confidential responses from a lawyer, an educator, a physician and an experienced woman. Questions about children, relationships and sexuality helped establish the magazine as a trusted source of personal guidance at a time when few Hebrew publications spoke directly to women about such subjects.

The 1950s and a market of its own

During the 1950s LaIsha was Israel's principal commercial women's paper. Would-be competitors such as Hava, LaIsha ve-la'Ofna, whose first issue appeared in January 1955, and Olam ha-Isha ha-Tse'ira, launched in April 1956, were short-lived, some closing after a single issue. In December 1952 Davar HaPoelet, the women workers' journal, published a critique of the magazine's emphasis on body care, an early sign of the debate about commercial women's journalism that would follow LaIsha for decades.

Historian Sharon Geva found that its 1950s coverage gave unusual prominence to individual women Holocaust survivors. Interviews and first-person accounts identified the women by name and included their photographs, treating the Holocaust as part of an individual biography rather than primarily as a political controversy or collective narrative, although the coverage frequently framed survivors through motherhood, family life and victimhood. The magazine gave extensive coverage to Rina Weiss, a survivor of Bergen-Belsen who represented Israel at the Miss World contest in 1956, and published her first-person account of the camp that year. In 1961 it ran a series titled "The Women behind the Eichmann Trial", including an interview with Yehudit Hausner, wife of the prosecutor Gideon Hausner, and at the end of the trial it conducted a street poll of women only.

Miss Israel and public initiatives

The magazine's best-known public initiative was the Miss Israel pageant, held under its auspices from 1950 to 2021. The first Miss Israel competition took place in 1950, following Nofekh-Mozes's initiative, and the pageant became one of the publication's most recognisable institutions, bringing together journalism, fashion and entertainment. During Israel's early years the magazine also promoted initiatives associated with constructing an Israeli female identity, including a national homemaker competition and the introduction of Mother's Day into Israeli public life. During the Six-Day War, LaIsha encouraged readers to contribute to the war effort, and the delayed 1967 beauty pageant, ultimately held in Jerusalem, was presented as part of the celebration of victory.

Social reporting in the 1970s

In the early 1970s the magazine sympathetically covered poverty, housing shortages and discrimination against female factory workers, sometimes criticising government policy. Although it did not cover the militant demonstrations of the Israeli Black Panthers, it supported their objectives and included women associated with the movement among its "women of the year"; the 1971 list was headed by "the Israeli woman struggling with economic hardship". Its coverage largely overlooked the protest's Mizrahi ethnic dimension. Studies of the 1970s found that domesticity and motherhood remained dominant ideals, alongside emerging representations of independent and critical women. An analysis of articles published between 1967 and 1977 found that the magazine encouraged paid employment for women, including mothers, while presenting several competing understandings of women's work and the division of responsibilities within families.

Expansion from the 1980s

Zvi Elgat succeeded Krasik in 1979 and edited the magazine until 1996. An obituary published by Ynet in 2008 stated that under his editorship the magazine reached unprecedented circulation and became the most widely distributed weekly in Israel, and according to Geva, by the late 1980s it had about 600,000 readers and was the most widely read weekly in the country. Coverage expanded to careers, education, relationships, health, consumer affairs, culture and leisure, while fashion, food and family remained central. In the late 1980s the entertainment weekly Pnai Plus began as a supplement to LaIsha before becoming a separate magazine within the Yedioth Ahronoth group.

In August 1996 Iris Zohar-Pinhasi became the first woman to oversee the magazine's daily editing, serving until 1999. During her tenure the relationship between advertising and editorial content attracted criticism: in 1997 the media journal The Seventh Eye criticised the integration of products and advertisers into articles, while Zohar-Pinhasi and the magazine's marketing staff defended consumer information as a service sought by readers. Orna Nenner became editor-in-chief in June 1999 and described her approach as combining enjoyable reading with practical information, investigative reporting and women's advancement. A 2004 article reported that her staff numbered about 100; she changed both the content mix and the graphic design, and the removal of the knitting columns drew complaints from readers. The 3,000th issue, in October 2004, was produced as a special album-format edition.

The Shtotland era and campaigns on violence

In 2014 Karina Shtotland succeeded Orna Nenner, who had edited the magazine for 15 years, as editor-in-chief. She had previously edited Yedioth Ahronoth's lifestyle supplement Zmanim Moderniyim for about six years and, before joining the group, had worked at magazines including At. Under her editorship the magazine expanded its coverage of obstacles to women's participation and advancement, including violence, employment discrimination, prostitution, single parenthood and women's health. The jury of the Sokolov Award, which she received in 2021, cited this expansion of the magazine's coverage of barriers to women's integration in society and in the home, and according to Ynet she was the first editor of a women's magazine to receive the prize since its establishment in 1956.

In October 2017 Shtotland announced that the magazine would address readers in the Hebrew feminine plural instead of the masculine plural conventionally used for general audiences, while keeping inclusive forms in the food and children's sections so as not to imply that housework and childcare were women's responsibilities alone. The period also included the cover project "You Will Not Rape Us into Silence" in 2016, the black helpline cover in 2021, the first cover addressed to violent men in 2022, and the permanent printing of a domestic violence helpline number on the magazine's spine from 2025; the 2021 cover and the 2025 initiative received international advertising awards.

Anniversaries, archive and continuing place

For its 75th anniversary in 2022, the magazine launched a searchable online archive of nearly 4,000 covers dating from 1947, accompanied by articles about their history. Its 4,000th issue followed in 2023, with a retrospective tracing its development from a small publication focused on homemaking, thrift and grooming into a broader magazine covering personal stories, society, culture, health, sexuality, careers and fashion. The magazine is based in Rishon LeZion, is published by the Yedioth Ahronoth Group, and maintains its presence through Ynet, the group's online portal. Scholars continue to study LaIsha as a record of how domesticity, paid employment and women's participation in public life have been represented in Israel, and as an example of a commercial magazine that also carried a civic role.