At the end of May 2020, on the eve of Shavuot, the first printed issue of the Hazman Hazeh magazine came out, after two years in which it had served as an online platform for public thought. The issue was distributed for free to all Haaretz subscribers along with the newspaper’s holiday edition, and additional copies were given out for free at a number of points around the country. The idea behind the broad distribution was that there is a wide public interested in deep and complex discussions of the issues that shape our lives.

Hazman Hazeh is a magazine, published by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which carries in-depth articles and essays on political, social, cultural, and scientific-technological issues, by leading researchers and authors from Israel and the world. The magazine wishes to offer fresh thinking on key issues that are, or ought to be, on the public and intellectual agenda in Israel and beyond. The first printed issue includes articles about the manufacture of money, the climate crisis, the rise of the nationalist discourse in Israel, conservative ideology and populism, a historic analysis of Israeli literature, and the human genome sequencing project.

In an interview with the magazine's editor, Asaf Shtull-Trauring, on Kan Culture (May 27, 2020, beginning at 16:13), he said that Israel lacks a space dedicated to long-form, in-depth essays and articles – a space crucial for public discourse that is currently lacking in academia, in the press, and certainly in social media. Hazman Hazeh magazine seeks to fill that need.

The printed issue can be found at bookstores throughout Israel free of charge. Likewise, the issue's articles are available on the magazine's website. Enjoy!