Norman Spector

(April 30) - On May 16, 1948, The Palestine Post informed its readers, in a dramatic banner headline: STATE OF ISRAEL IS BORN.

Just how precarious was this birth can be gleaned from the other headlines which shared the front page: "Egyptian Air Force Spitfires bomb Tel Aviv"; "2 [Egyptian] Columns Cross Southern Border"; "Etzion Settlers Taken P.O.W."

Less dramatic, but just as telling in its way, is a small notice at the bottom of the page: "Despite the power failure in Jerusalem, the Electric Corporation succeeded in providing this office with power about 10:50 last night... Before the linotype machines could begin to work, however, it was 1 a.m., and in order to be able to appear this morning, The Palestine Post is published, for the third time in as many weeks, in two pages."

Despite power outages, bombings and the long, hard days of the siege of Jerusalem, The Palestine Post continued to publish every day in one form or another, reporting on events happening just outside its doorstep, in the heart of a war-zone. This newspaper was not just an observer, but very much a part of that struggle - as it had been since it was founded in 1932 and almost immediately began its anti-colonial campaign against the British with the objective of restoring sovereignty to the Jewish people in its ancestral homeland.

Unabashedly Labor-Zionist in orientation under founding editor Gershon Agron's leadership, it both shaped and reflected the national Jewish consensus of the day. The newly born Jewish state of 1948 was dominated by David Ben-Gurion's Socialist Zionist establishment, and The Palestine Post was owned in large part by two of its pillars, the Jewish Agency and Histadrut. There are still those at the paper who remember taking the next day's editorial to Foreign Minister's Moshe Sharett's house "for corrections," prior to publication.

Fifty years on, The Jerusalem Post, like the nation of Israel itself, has changed to reflect the times. Today we are an independent and non-partisan publication, open to a broad range of voices from across the spectrum of Israeli society. We are unapologetically Zionist, eager for peace with our Arab neighbors, and very much within the consensus of Israeli society. Of course, as Israelis have grown more self-critical, more willing to openly air differences rather than cover them up, and to question certain values rather than simply accept them as Holy Writ, so has the Post.

The Israel of 1998 is more economically diverse, more capitalist, more a part of the global free market, and as a reflection of that change, The Jerusalem Post is today part of Hollinger, the third largest newspaper chain in the world, a corporation whose reach spans continents. This makes us a stronger paper, and very much part of the trend that sees foreign investors increasingly entering Israel, bringing with them the best practices of the Western, and particularly the English-speaking, world.

The Palestine Post, especially during the long, hard months of the War of Independence, struggled to reach even a small local circle of readers.

Today, each morning The Jerusalem Post speeds along the Internet to millions of readers around the world. The International Edition is read in 108 countries, and we are the first newspaper in the world to publish a daily electronic edition. These differences, too, reflects a radical change in Israel over the decades, with the Jewish state, especially in the past few years, becoming an integral part of the global village.

On Israel's 50th birthday, as we look back in pride on the first Independence Day, we have an opportunity to examine where we have come to on this jubilee occasion, and where we are going in the days to come.

This special Independence Day Magazine was printed without the handicaps of electric blackouts, bombs falling across the capital, or the road to Tel Aviv cut off by deadly crossfire. Today, the Israeli saga has become as much a struggle of internal self-definition, rather than simply a fight to survive external threats - though these, too, continue. But still, just as on that day 50 years ago, The Jerusalem Post continues to be an integral part of this country's developing history.

And just as on that first Independence Day, we look forward on this 50th with a mixture of pride, concern, hope and faith for our collective future.

- Norman Spector