ISRAELI NEWS….A correspondent writes to tell me that “The Jerusalem Post has been taken over by non-Israeli right-wingers and every writer of any talent (or salary) has been let go. It survives entirely by pandering to the out-of-Israel Likudnik market.” He suggests that I add Ha’aretz to my media list on the right in order to get more balanced Israeli reporting. Consider it done.
In fact, any other suggestions for additions are welcome too. I created the media list several months ago for my own use simply by skimming though Yahoo’s news category and plucking out interesting-sounding English language sites. I’m open to suggestions for additional good news sources, especially foreign ones.
POSTSCRIPT: In blogs, everyone seems to refer to this newspaper as “Ha’aretz,” while they themselves have ditched the apostrophe and transliterate themselves as “Haaretz.” It seems like I really ought to use the translation they themselves use, but what do I know? What’s the deal here?
UPDATE: Reader Howard Litwak sets the record straight:
In Hebrew, “ha” means “the” and “aretz” means “land.”
Ha-aretz (yes, I’m doing this intentionally!) is one word in Hebrew (in fact, it’s in the first line of the Old Testament ? you know, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth), so it would make sense to treat it, in its English representation, as “haaretz.”
OK, I’m convinced.
