Posts of the Week

Editor Bilhah Reuven selects the best from Facebook. A memorial column for a bygone era - that no one remembered in real time. In pursuit of the lost discourse - and the land that was never there

Two Years Later: The Degeneration of Facebook

What is the "Bitch Algorithm"? The Bitch returns for a farewell performance, at the end of which she throws out someone very familiar to you

Alternatives to Haaretz: How to Give Your Brain Healthier Daily Nourishment?

Deep down, we all know it's an addiction - and a bad habit - created due to our brain's vulnerability to inconsistent positive feedback addiction. Like gamblers who occasionally win but lose in the long run, like a girl addicted to an unstable relationship with a cheating ex who occasionally writes "I love you," precisely because most articles in Haaretz are poor but a few are good - we become addicted to it. Addiction to Haaretz is like addiction to Facebook, smartphones, porn. Haaretz Anonymous Readers present: ten steps to recover from daily time-wasting

Why Did I Stop Reading Haaretz?

A chronicle of a foreseeable escape. The Bitch revisits the moments when she tore off the leash, released the choking grip of the collar, and left with a disappointed head but a raised tail - from slavery to freedom, and from home to the street. Will she ever return?

Continuation of the All-Time "Haaretz" Ranking - Bottom of the Table

Forgive me if I'm a sentimental bitch, but this is not just a summary of Haaretz, or of a glorious critical career. It's a summary of the period when I believed in Haaretz, and perhaps also believed in other things (that were sold to me in Haaretz), since I started reading it as a puppy. Since then, I've grown up - and Haaretz has regressed. I've become wiser - and Haaretz has become more foolish. The internet has risen higher and higher in the realms of content and knowledge - and Haaretz has degenerated. The newspaper for people who think themselves - has lost its importance and itself. But I still remember the time when "written in Haaretz" was a mark of quality. No longer

Summary of the "Haaretz" Ranking (Top of the Table): If You Believe It Can Be Ruined, Believe It Can Be Fixed

People ask me: What's the reason the Bitch's critical spring has dried up? Has the newspaper improved so much that there's nothing left to criticize? Why have you abandoned your post while the caravan passes? Return to your kennel, bitch. Therefore, as a service to dog owners, provided by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, I'll present Haaretz from a satellite view: a depth cross-section, a broad picture, and a general horizontal overview of the newspaper's state, which reflects the state of Israeli intelligence, which reflects the state of the Jewish nation, which reflects the state of creation, the breaking of vessels and destruction, which reflect the existential state of the dog. If there are no bones - eat meat

The Protestant God of The Marker: When Will the Redeemer Come

The Bitch reviews The Marker Weekend, once a worthy competitor to Haaretz's supplement, and today - a victim of lack of competitiveness, of Haaretz's monopoly, of Rolnik's obsessive centralization, of pyramids of false consciousness, and perhaps also of the unions - which don't allow for proper turnover of interviewers. Will The Marker return to being competitive, reflecting the variety of stories and approaches in the economic world? On the improper connections between bon ton and newspaper

Haaretz is Guilty of Bibi - Part B: This is Not How You Build a Wall

"Haaretz" preferred to collapse under rating constraints and hide behind a paywall - the only one in Israel! - out of a lack of thinking about alternatives, and mainly - out of a lack of thought about the meaning of the decision. Israeli society and the community of Haaretz readers were affected by it in two opposite ways - which untied their connection to each other

Haaretz is Guilty of Bibi - Part A: It's Not Funny

Only one thing could have stopped the Bibi phenomenon from taking over Israeliness. Bibi is the embodiment of Judaism's ailments - victimhood, arrogance towards gentiles, passivity, loudness, neurotic apprehension - and therefore his character is tailored to the takeover of the yearning Jewish soul over the Israeli spirit. He lacks only one ancient Jewish component - and in it could have been his downfall. And it's precisely this component that is completely absent from "Haaretz"

"Haaretz" in Panic: Zehut Party's Platform is More Intelligent than its Opinion Page

What's behind "Haaretz's" obsession with "Zehut"? Why did Haaretz go crazy (literally) in the elections specifically around Zehut's platform, of all issues, and dedicated disproportionate coverage to it, also lacking basic fairness, which even the anti-Bibi pales in comparison, and which it would never allow itself against any other candidate or agenda? Why does Feiglin bother Haaretz more than Bibi, Bennett, Shaked, Otzma Yehudit and Lieberman - combined, and is also more essential to it than them (apparently)? A coverage of the election coverage in Haaretz - and of The Marker's Yom Kippur

Expose: Gantz Means Goose in Yiddish

You voted Bibi - you got Ziffer. If Bibi is ousted, Ziffer will have to quickly resign from "Culture and Literature" to receive his pension plan from Bibi - the position of head of the Israeli Institute in Cairo, according to Case 10000. The correct literary choice - Honk honk honk!

Where Has Amir Oren Disappeared To?

Yossi Verter and Amir Oren, the two best reporters in Haaretz, were a dynamic duo. Both share a similar worldview and journalistic thinking that focuses on micro-tactics (amusingly and intricately convoluted!) at the expense of strategy. This perspective creates in their readers a gossip-like thinking where the ridiculous bears hide the forest and the constant dance of fools is stronger than tectonic movements

The Seven Circles of Hell of Galeria

Dear General, why did you send me back to hell? It's not funny. I'm willing to write about anything else, just not about Galeria. Part two and final in the critique of the Galeria supplement

A Dubious Gallery of Characters

I'm begging the Chief of Staff, and using this subtitle for that purpose: Please, dear editor, don't assign me to write about Galeria again

Uri Mark the Sex Destroyer

"And you're doing me wrong / You're doing me wrong / I'm burning slowly / I'm lying down and you / You're doing me wrong / You're doing me wrong" (Haaretz supplement editor in his song "You're Doing Me Wrong")

Who Will Replace Benny Ziffer?

The great enemy of the bad - is the worse

There's Nothing New Under the Sun

When the sun is too strong - sometimes the bottom gets burned. The story of a column in the Haaretz supplement

Arik Glasner's Crystal Ball

Glasner, then a Ziffer refugee, foresees a decade ago in an open letter to Schocken: "The intention is not that it's appropriate to turn 'Books' into 'Galeria' for literary matters, a trend that has been emerging in recent years, may God preserve and save us"

Uri Mark Sees in the Stars

Mark, currently the editor of Haaretz supplement, predicts three years ago the establishment of the Chiefs of Staff party in a night meeting (but confuses Savyon with Kfar Saba)