While there is a rich literature on Jewish and Hebrew history, it often focuses on topics such as politics, economics, and religion, without fully covering the role played by journalists and the media. Elyad's Hebrew Popular Journalism offers a rare academic debate on this particular topic. His book, written in Hebrew and then translated by Naftali Greenwood, explores the Hebrew popular newspapers that arose at the turn of the twentieth century in Ottoman Palestine, focusing mainly on periodicals led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (Perlman) and his son Itamar Ben-Avi, including Ha-Zvi, Hashkafa, and Ha-Or. The book investigates the establishment of these newspapers and how they developed editorial policies, content, target audiences, and strategies for dealing with their competitors including Ha-Herut, Ha-Po'el Ha-Tasa'ir, Moria, Havazelet, and Ha-Pades. It also examines the broader political environment in which these papers were written, during the period when Palestine was still under Ottoman rule and was impacted by a number of global events such as the rise of the Young Turks and the First World War.
Elyada's manuscript consists of an introduction, seven chapters, and a conclusion. It also includes fifteen figures, which each shows front pages or excerpts of Hebrew newspapers, including some newspaper photographs. In terms of methodological considerations, he based his analysis on the French historiographical school of Annales as presented by Roger Chartier, noting that this approach “sees importance in the processes of production, circulation, and acceptance of the newspaper” (19). The introduction also places this work in broader theoretical context by examining the views of a range of leading philosophers on the role of the popular press, including theorists such as Moshe Kere, Yosef Haim Brenner, and Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer of the Frankfurt School, the French philosopher Guy Debord, the historian Eric Hobsbawn, and Jurgen Habermas, Michel de Certeau, John Fiske, and the historian Yaacov Shavit.
In the first chapter, entitled “The Ben-Yehuda Newspapers, Identifying the Jewish Readership,” Elyada introduces in detail the Ben-Yehuda family's members and newspapers, and their rivaling periodicals. Elyada finds that Ben-Yehuda was drawn into writing his first article, which was later submitted to the Jewish newspaper Ha-Schachar and published under the title “A Burning Question” in April 1879, while he was pursuing medical studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. In that article, Ben-Yehuda claim that the Jewish people are a nation, and in order to be realized, they must go through “aliyah,” the Jewish immigration to Israel, and revive the Hebrew language as a marker of national identity. The chapter also tells how the son of Ben Yehuda, Itamar Ben-Avi, and the second wife of his father, Hemda, were supporting the newspapers in editing, writing, and creating new sections and ideas, along with other supporting writers.
In the second chapter, “The First Hebrew Daily Newspaper in Palestine,” Elyada focuses on how and why Ben-Yehuda's newspaper moved into a daily newspaper in Palestine during important events, such as the Young Turk revolution. Furthermore, it explores the transition to daily publication and the difficulties that this posed, including limitations of writers, the search for advertising revenue, and preparation for frequent issuance, production, and circulation. Elyada refers also to the short-lived, five months’ agreement between Ben-Avi and Shlomo Geingold, a businessman and investor, due to competition and the fluid politics of that time in Palestine.
In answering how the daily Ha-Zvi managed to survive, chapter 3, “The Daily Ha-Zvi, Yello, Editorial Strategies and Readers’ Reactions,” provides further accounts of events that were deemed newsworthy by Ben-Avi. Elyada asks, “How did the editors of Ha-Zvi manage to publish. . . and increase its circulation?” Then he explains, “The answer lies, above all, in the decision to prioritize the local reader” (100). Such events include the Young Turk Revolution, which was reported sensationally. Also important were the reportage of the Anahnu affair, which offered an early example of using a provocative scandal strategy, the Antebi affair, which marked a watershed moment for the journalistic “crusade” genre. The paper also covered corruption in Tel Aviv in 1909 and the Hushuma affair. This type of yellow journalism not only expanded the readership of the daily newspaper, but also attracted further advertising revenues. In chapter 4, the book explores how the Young Turk Revolution impacted the sphere of mass journalism and publishing houses, thanks to the liberal constitution that was adopted by the Ottoman Empire. After the Revolution, the press grew and diversified, launching new papers in different languages, including Arabic, Hebrew, Ladino, and Yiddish. Readership also increased, and Jerusalem became the capital of the Jewish papers of that period. However, this development did leave some issues lingering, like competitions between Ha-Zvi and its opponents Ha-Herut, Havazelet, Ha-Po'el, Ha Tsa'ir, and Moria, especially in Yishuv, because its people did not know Hebrew.
Analyzing the competition between newspapers, chapter 5, “The Struggle for Yellow Hegemony, Ha-Or vs. Ha-Herut,” details some of the main stories, including interview pieces, and even press wars between the papers of Ben-Avi and his competitors. Ha-Or published interviews, even stories prior to their visits, with important figures like the German royalty Kaiser Wilhelm II and director of the Anglo-Palestine Bank Zalman David Levontin, and later his affair with his deputy in Jerusalem, Yehoshuna Barzilai (Eisenstadt). Chapter 6, “Crime and Catastrophe Stories in the Hebrew Popular Press,” investigates the themes dominating the Hebrew presses, namely, crime and catastrophe stories. For example, the papers covered stories like murders and prostitutions in Arab Jaffa and Jerusalem, including the Herling-Laiser affair, in addition to covering the catastrophe of the sinking of the Titanic. Other stories included the fire at the Jerusalem flour mill and the destruction of Messina in Italy. Chapter 7, “Military Coverage in the Hebrew Popular Press,” explores how the Hebrew popular press covered the military news, especially the Italian-Ottoman and Balkan Wars. Elyada writes, “The first newspaper that covers engaged in military coverage. . . was Ben-Yehuda's newspaper Ha-Zvi, which back in 1885. . . analyzed General Gordo'sn. . . struggle in Khartoum” (258). It also sheds light on how the press at that time dealt with news-sourcing before and after World War I, especially with respect to the role first of the Ottoman Empire and then of the emergent Turkish Republic, which shaped the discourse concerning freedom of the press.
Hebrew Popular Journalism provides an interesting historical analysis of the editorial agendas, innovations, and competitions of Jewish newspapers in Ottoman Palestine from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, a time when events of great moment, locally, regionally, and globally, were afoot. The book not only explores what happened, but how it happened and how it was covered by the press. It also explores the economic and logistical challenges of competition for readership and advertising revenues, which shaped the papers’ content. The book could have been richer if it included a chapter solely dedicated to the history of the Hebrew press worldwide, especially the Jewish diaspora in Europe and beyond. Nevertheless, Elyada's work is very much relevant to historians and academics whose interests cover the history of the Hebrew and Jewish press in Palestine during the Ottoman Empire, including the beginning development of those newspapers, their media techniques, procedures, challenges, and contents.
