The start of this week saw the launching of a new website published by the editorial board of Zo HaDerekh (This Is the Way), the Hebrew-language newspaper of the Communist Party of Israel (CPI).
Zo HaDerekh features news, commentaries and op-ed pieces from a communist perspective on everything of interest in Israel and around the world: workers’ struggles, the campaign against right-wing rule, the struggle to end Israel’s occupation of the occupied Palestinian territories, feminist debates, an inside look at Arab society in Israel (in collaboration with Al-Ittihad – the Arab-language daily newspaper of the CPI), the climate crisis, culture and more.
Zo HaDerekh (This Is the Way), the Hebrew-language organ of the Communist Party of Israel (CPI) is now a website updated daily.
In its first decade and a half, from January 1951 to June 1965, Zo HaDrekh was a journal published by the CPI that dealt with communist theory and practice; its editor was Meir Vilner, a party leader and Member of the Knesset. At the same time, the CPI also published an ideological journal in Arabic, Al-Darb (The Path).
After the CPI’s split in 1965, the various organs published by the party were divided between the two rival factions: The daily newspaper, Kol Ha’am (Voice of the People) remained in the hands of that led by Shmuel Mikunis and Moshe Sneh, which continued to be called in the Knesset “Maki” (the Hebrew acronym of Miphlaga Communistit Yisraelit – Communist Party of Israel). The faction that became known as “Rakah” (the Hebrew acronym for Rishima Communistit Hadasha – New Communist List) led by Meir Vilner, Tawfik Toubi and Emile Habibi (and which renamed itself “Maki” [CPI] following the dissolution of the Mikunis-Sneh faction in the early 1970s) retained control over the Arabic-language daily Al-Ittihad (The Union – founded in 1944), and the two ideological journals, the Hebrew Zo HaDerekh and Arabic Al-Darb. At the initiative of Meir Vilner, Zo HaDerekh went from being an ideological journal to a weekly paper that has appeared regularly ever since August 1965. Vilner was its editor-in-chief until 1984 when he was succeeded by Tamar Gozansky who served in this role until 2011. In that year Dr. Ephraim Davidi became editor-in-chief while Uri Waltman served as acting editor. The current editor of Zo HaDerekh, appointed in 2019, is Assaf Talgam.
The circulation of the printed version of the weekly Zo HaDerekh is around a thousand copies. In addition, every week an electronic copy of the paper is distributed via email to thousands of other readers. The printed weekly edition of Zo HaDrekh will continue to be published and distributed by the Communist Party of Israel in parallel to the daily updating of the paper’s website.
Related: The Zo HaDerekh website: www.zoha.org.il
