About The Times of Israel and its staff

The Times of Israel is a Jerusalem-based online newspaper founded in 2012 to document developments in Israel, the Middle East and around the Jewish world.

It was established by veteran UK-born, Israeli journalist David Horovitz and his US-based capital partner Seth Klarman. Horovitz is the founding editor, responsible for the site’s editorial content.

The Times of Israel has no partisan political affiliation. It seeks to present the news fair-mindedly and offers a wide range of analysis and opinion pieces.

We also highlight developments from Jewish communities throughout the Diaspora, and thus serve as a global focal point for the Jewish world – informing and engaging members of the tribe everywhere.

We aim for the site to serve as a platform for constructive debate regarding the challenges facing Israel, the region and the Jewish people. Rather than enabling anonymous postings, therefore, we encourage our readers to respond to our material in their own names via Facebook.

The core staff and contributors of The Times of Israel include many of Israel’s leading English-language journalists. We are also happy to consider freelance contributions, to receive news and video content, and to host your blogs. To submit content, see our Contact Us page.

The Times of Israel Staff

	Raphael Ahren is our diplomatic correspondent, covering Israel’s foreign relations and domestic politics. Before joining The Times of Israel, he was a reporter at Haaretz. Born and raised in Germany, Ahren holds an MA in modern Jewish history from Yeshiva University and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.
	Linda Amar is the Assistant to the Editor and Office Manager at The Times of Israel. Having made aliya from the US in the early 1980s, she had previously worked as assistant to the editor-in-chief under six consecutive editors — most recently David Horovitz — at The Jerusalem Post.
	Michael Bachner is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel. A Jerusalem native, he holds a BA in Journalism and Communications and International Relations from the Hebrew University, and has written for several news outlets in English and Hebrew.
	Pnina Baumgarten, chief copy editor, is a native New Yorker who has lived nearly half her life in Jerusalem. She’s written, edited and licensed content for hi-tech companies, mainly at Answers.com, and did a stint at The Jerusalem Post.
	Before joining the Times of Israel as a news editor and videographer, Ricky Ben-David worked with several foreign media networks as a producer. She is the former op-ed editor of the Jerusalem Post. A Montreal native, she speaks English, French and Hebrew and holds an MA from King’s College London.
	With a Jewish Studies degree, a back pack and a violin, Deputy Editor Amanda Borschel-Dan moved to Israel in 1999 on the eve of the great Jerusalem garbage strike. A mother of six, Borschel-Dan worked at The Jerusalem Post for a decade, primarily as its longtime Friday Magazine editor before becoming a founding TOI staff member, concentrating on topics of interest in the Jewish World and archaeology.
	Aaron Boxerman covers Palestinian affairs for The Times of Israel. He graduated with a BA in History from Northwestern University in 2019.
	Dr. Avi Davidi, editor of the Times of Israel Persian edition, is a Senior Iran Analyst and Director of the Iran Project on the Implications of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He was formerly Iran Director and Senior Advisor at the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, and Senior Advisor at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, heading Digital Diplomacy in Persian.
	Cleveland-native Joshua Davidovich, deputy editor of The Times of Israel, has been a reporter and editor for over a decade, covering Israel, the US and the Jewish world. He previously worked at Haaretz and has degrees in journalism and urban planning from the University of Maryland and Tel Aviv University
	Anne Gordon is the deputy editor of Ops & Blogs and a member of the copyediting team. A native of Boston, she enjoyed an intense and varied career in Jewish education, when aliyah pushed her to the world of hi-tech, drawing on her skills as a writer and editor. Anne holds a BA in History and Philosophy and an MA in Judaic Studies from Harvard University. She studied in the women’s batei midrash of Jerusalem and New York for nearly a decade, and is pursuing a distressingly slow doctorate in Jewish Education.
	Military correspondent Judah Ari Gross joined The Times of Israel following a two-year stint as an army photographer. After graduating from the University of Maryland in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism (Go Terps!), he moved to Israel, eventually settling in Tel Aviv.
	Ops & Blogs Editor Miriam Herschlag was a reporter and anchor for Israel’s English radio and TV news. She spent two years in Hong Kong, where she was founding editor of a business Webzine, and she later ran the training and documentation departments at Given Imaging Inc.
	David Horovitz is the founding editor of The Times of Israel. He was previously editor of The Jerusalem Post and The Jerusalem Report. He is the author of “A Little Too Close to God: The Thrills and Panic of a Life in Israel” (2000) and “Still Life with Bombers: Israel in the Age of Terrorism” (2004).
	Elie Leshem, deputy editor of The Times of Israel, is a former editor-in-chief of iTravelJerusalem.com and arts editor at The Jerusalem Post. He is also a literary and academic translator, whose latest work is an anthology of essays about Judaism and postmodernism by the late Rabbi Shagar.
	Melanie Lidman is a traveling features writer who has previously covered environment, religion, and social affairs for The Times of Israel. A graduate of the University of Maryland, she is also an avid urban gardener and maintains a menagerie of bicycles and chickens.
	Jacob Magid is the settlements correspondent and a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel. A Chicago native currently living in Tel Aviv, Jacob graduated from the University of Maryland with a BA in Arabic studies and political science.
	Eyal Nevo is Times of Israel’s VP of Monetization and New Business Development. Eyal joined The Times of Israel after 15 years in New York, where he held various positions in the online marketing industry. Earlier in his career Eyal was a copywriter and a creative director in two languages, on two continents.
	Marissa Newman is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel. She holds an MA in Journalism and Communications from Hebrew University, and lives in Jerusalem.
	Originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, Gavin Rabinowitz is a News Editor at The Times of Israel. He has worked as a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency based in Jerusalem, New Delhi and Athens, and reporting from more than a dozen countries. He has a BA in Political Science from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and a MA in International Development from the University of Turin.
	Haviv Rettig Gur is a political analyst at The Times of Israel. He has covered Israeli politics and the country’s foreign and regional policies, as well as its fraught relationship with the Jewish diaspora, since 2005. He has reported from over 20 countries and lectures in Israel and abroad on Israeli society and history, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and more. He served as director of communications for the Jewish Agency for Israel, Israel’s largest NGO. He teaches history and politics at Israeli premilitary academies.
	Mark Schulman has been a copy editor at The Times of Israel since 2014. With an MA in International Relations from Columbia University in New York, he has spent the past 20 years following his diplomatic wife around the world, with stints in Africa, Australia, Switzerland, the US, and, of course, Israel. He has written and edited for numerous publications from all these postings.
	Yaakov Schwartz is The Times of Israel’s deputy Jewish World editor. Raised in Detroit (or as the natives call it, “Hockeytown,”) he  made his way to Israel via New York and Oregon, where he earned his MFA in creative writing from Oregon State University.
	Shoshanna Solomon edits our Startup Israel innovation section. Before joining The Times of Israel, she worked for Bloomberg News in Tel Aviv as a reporter. Her career has spanned writing for a number of outlets, including Reuters, Dow Jones Newswires, the Hebrew language Telegraph and The Architects’ Journal in London. She holds an MA in Communications from the Tel Aviv University and a BA in Political Science and Business from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
	Jessica Steinberg, a former New Yorker, has been covering culture and lifestyle for The Times of Israel since its inception. As a working journalist in Israel since moving here in 1995, Jessica has written about Israeli life, parenting, fashion, real estate and culture for The New York Times, Women’s Wear Daily, Tablet Magazine, JTA, Hadassah and Parents.com., and prior to that, covered the Israeli business scene for Bloomberg News, Dow Jones Newswires, The Jerusalem Post and The Forward. She is also the author of the award-winning children’s book, “Not This Turkey,” a 1950s Thanksgiving story that was selected as a PJ Library book.
	Sue Surkes has a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University and a post graduate diploma in journalism from the University of Wales. She worked as a reporter and special correspondent for UK national newspapers before making Aliyah in 1991. Sue took time out of the profession to work for NGOs, returning to journalism as a breaking news editor for the Times of Israel in 2015.
	Luke Tress is a video journalist and photographer for the Times of Israel. Originally from upstate New York, he holds an MA from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and lives in Tel Aviv.
	Sarah Tuttle-Singer, The Times of Israel social media editor, is an LA expat (reluctantly) growing roots in Israel. She’s also a contributing editor at Kveller.com. Dangerous when bored.
	Mick Weinstein is the Head of Product and Revenue at The Times of Israel. He previously held senior marketing and product positions at the Hartman Institute, BillGuard/Prosper Marketplace and Seeking Alpha.
	Stuart Winer is a Breaking News Editor, part of the team that keeps the Times of Israel site up to date with the latest news, as it happens. Stuart has over a decade of experience reporting from Israel and the capital Jerusalem.
	Raoul Wootliff is the political correspondent for The Times of Israel, covering the Knesset and the Israeli government. Since immigrating to Israel from the UK, Raoul has worked in Israel’s political scene, first as a spokesman and then as a Knesset correspondent for local radio.

The Times of Israel Editorial Board

Our editorial board is a small group of exceptional individuals who offered support for The Times of Israel during its planning stages, and from whom we will seek input as we progress.

It comprises Sharon Ashley (former editor of The Jerusalem Report and former director of Israel Engagement at Hillel), Irwin Cotler (human rights activist and former Canadian justice minister), Efraim Halevy (former director of the Mossad, ambassador and national security adviser), Saul Singer (journalist and author of “Start-Up Nation”), and Ehud Yaari (Arab affairs commentator for Channel 2 news, journalist and author).

Yehuda Avner (former ambassador and adviser to a succession of Israeli prime ministers) was a treasured member of our editorial board until his death in March 2015.