Welcome to Our Inaugural Issue

Message From the Editor
I am delighted to announce the first issue of Israzine, CIJR’s new bi-weekly web- magazine of Israel- and Jewish-world-related politics and culture.

Israzine will plug a gap here at CIJR, between our hugely popular daily Isranet Briefing and French-language Communiqué Isranet publications, which group two or three outstanding pieces and/or source-material documents around changing issues of moment, and ISRAFAX, our respected quarterly print journal. It will enable us to focus at length on thoughtful thematic issues and problems, to encourage original submissions, and to include other subjects and comment in the new publication’s Charivari, Perspectives and Correspondence sections.

With Israzine, the Institute now has a supple, interrelated and lively set of critical analytic frameworks adequate to the richness and complexity of Israel’s and the Jewish people’s past and contemporary historical, political, religious and cultural experience.

I hope you will enjoy the new publication, and find it timely, informed and up-to-date, as well as genuinely insightful and stimulating. And again, I invite you to comment by writing to us at Israzine’s Correspondence mailbox.

Finally, I would like to thank, and commend, Israzine’s Associate Editor, Machla Abramovitz, our webmaster, Aaron Muscott, CIJR’s Research Chairman, Baruch Cohen, and CIJR’s Assistant Director, Jackie Douek — without their creative support, not only this opening number, but Israzine itself, would not have been possible.

Sincerely,
Prof. Frederick Krantz
Director, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research

A Message from the Assistant Editor
In keeping with CIJR's mandate to educate the public regarding key issues facing Israel, the Middle East, and the Jewish world, the Institute has launched Israzine, its first on-line web magazine. Israzine, published bi-weekly, will complement CIJR's Daily Briefing, which is currently being read by thousands of people internationally.

The magazine will be structured thematically. Each issue will highlight four or five outstanding articles of particular relevance to the chosen topic, as well as one or two other articles on timely issues. In addition to the primary-topic articles, links will alert readers to related articles, source and audio-visual materials, and interviews. We encourage interested readers and researchers to take advantage of these resources, and to communicate their views to us.

We will also be carrying works written exclusively for Israzine by Canadian and international academics and acknowledged experts. In addition, we plan not only to provide a forum for voices whose perspectives are often ignored by the media at large, but to expand our general overall thematic content to reach beyond politics into areas which deal more specifically with issues relating to Jewish history, thought, and identity. Modern Jewish literature and Bible studies are examples of two such subject areas that will highlight work by vibrant new writers and scholars, in Israel and elsewhere.

Two new regular features are "Charivari" and "Letters to the Editor". The former section will feature works of a cultural nature, including literary writings, poetry, Bible analysis, Jewish humour, book reviews and so on. We encourage readers to share with us their personal responses to Israzine articles, and to raise other issues as well, in the "Letters to the Editor" section.

We are extremely excited by the possibilities the Israzine format affords us to provide our readers with informative issues and articles that not only deal with pressing matters of the day but which also, in different ways, gauge the evolving character of contemporary Jewish thought and identity.

Sincerely yours,
Machla Abramovitz
Associate Editor,Israzine