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erusalem — For more
than 50 years, the
Jerusalem Post has
served as the gateway to
Israel for those unversed in
Hebrew. Tourists, students,
diplomats, Western olim and
friends of Israel abroad
regularly turn to the Post in
order to make sense of Middle
East events.
In a land of tradition, the
Jerusalem Post has long been
part of the landscape. To
many, the daily is a comfort-
able friend with its prose
written in a sophisticated
English accent and its reg-
ular features like the "Dry
Bones" comic strip.
Others turned to the Post
out of sheer necessity, com-
plaining about its uncon-
tested grip on the market and
charging that it is too left
wing and anti-religious.
All that changed in Sep-
tember with the first issue of
The Natioh, a daily in tabloid
form that proclaims itself pro-
Israel and apolitical.
Hoping to be a credible
alternative to the Post from
the outset, The Nation is now
home to three Post stalwarts,
including "Dry Bones" car-
toonist Yaakov Kirschen.
And while no one is predic-
ting the demise of the Jeru-
salem Post and many are
pessimistic about The Na-
tion's long-term viability,
most people are hoping the
new kid on the block will
make Israel a more lively
English-language newspaper
market.
The Nation is the brain-
child of Hesh Kestin, a
45-year-old journalist and
former orange grower who is
banking on the notion that
Israelis are ready for an in-
dependent apolitical news-
paper. Kestin, who made
aliyah from the United States
in 1970, says he sank all his
savings into the newspaper
and convinced a group of
American and Canadian
Jews to invest as well.
"I woke up one morning
and said, 'Surely I can do
something better for this
country than be one of its 10
worst medics," was one of his
reasons for establishing the
paper.
Another reason, he says, is
money. Investors poured some
$2 million into the project and
Kestin says The Nation will
be operating in the black at
the end of its first year of
operation. He says that he is
already selling one
newspaper for every two the

j

Post sells on the weekend.
The home of The Nation is
the third floor of a renovated
building in the industrial
zone of Petach Tikvah: One of
the earliest Zionist set-
tlements, Petach Tikvah is no
longer known for its orange
groves, but rather as a gritty
suburb east of Tel Aviv.
Dogs wander confidently
through the area's small back
streets and Arabic music
pours out of the garages that
are The Nation's neighbors.
The newspaper's office is
bedlam. The premises re-
semble a student newspaper
as staff members rush
around, work away on desk-
top computers and try to
make themselves heard above
the constant din. "It's crazed
and frenzied here," says Bal-
timore native Paul Miller,
who works in the graphics
department.
The setup appears make-
shift. Desks and metal
shelves divide one work area
from the next. Kestin's office'
is behind perpendicular divi-
ders in the farthest corner of

4

"If people want a
newspaper to
further split the
Jews, let them do
it themselves."

the floor. Here he makes
himself comfortable amid the
jumbles of paper covering his
desk and the endless phone
calls and interruptions from
staff. He consults with his
departmental heads by shout-
ing to them over the dividers.
"This paper has taken on a
momentum of its own," he
says. "All I can do is steer it,"
Kestin says. He steers for
about 16 hours a day, oversees
a staff of 65, mostly young
and mostly American. Kestin
is constantly taking on new
people, partly because of
growth — weekday editions
are set to go from 15 to 24
pages — and also due to a
high turnover.
The Nation has an
American flavor on purpose,
Kestin says. Articles are
short, light and make much
use of color graphics. More
than anything, The Nation
resembles USA Today.
Kestin acknowledges com-
plaints that his paper's con-
tent is too light and relies too
heavily on news and features
from the Washington Post, Los
Angeles Times and The Guar-
dian. The paper is new an
evolving, he says. Cartoonist
Kirschen puts it more blunt-

.4