David Laxer
Shmuel “Mooly” Eden, the Intel executive who heads the computer giant's PC computing division, once noted that it's not long after an American company buys Israeli one when some CEO or senior exec ends up asking the inevitable question: “Have I just bought an Israeli company, or has the Israeli company just bought me?” Eden’s insight points to a local phenomenon of border-blurring between employee and employer, and the fact that the consummate Israeli employee feels he not only could but indeed should be the employer.
It's an amusing story – until you find yourself a part of it. Running a glossy magazine in this day-and-age is no walk in the park. It took me a little while longer than it should have to realize that I needed a publishing gun-for-hire to take care of day-to-day operations and make sure the magazine doesn't jump its tracks. To bring things full circle (in Israel, there is always a full circle), I stumbled across one of Eden’s former employees, Oren Izre’el, who quickly began tweaking and trimming the magazine's operations. In no time at all, I had a well-oiled machine to helm but, recalling the American executive, felt a deep wave of empathy as I wondered if it's still me who's at the helm.
But, “tachlas”—or, in reality—it's Israelis and their wonderful, weird, infuriating, and infatuating country who are making 18 a success. The response to our first issue was overwhelming. That people still have an ardent desire to hold a physical, beautifully-designed publication in their hands, heartening. And that we have grabbed the attention of readers like yourself is meaningful proof of the operating assumption of 18: that Israel is a world unto itself, whose culture extends so far beyond politics that, with an objective and curious eye looking, the former fully eclipses the latter.
The question, then, as we undertake the experiment of 18 is what does it mean, what have we learned? In the age of marketing in which we live, it's legitimate to think of everything as an exercise in branding. With a background in marketing and design, this is how I myself thought of the magazine just one issue ago. But the experience of that issue—meeting the people I met, the subjects of all the stories, the writers and photographers, and you, the reader—has profoundly changed my mind on this point.
Branding is at essence an artificial process—slapping a good-looking sticker onto an ugly can, to use a little hyperbole. This magazine has turned out to be anything but artificial. Like my Israeli employee taking control of operations for me, the subjects of the magazine have taken control of its content. There is a word for this kind of process: expression. The specific lesson I've learned from this is that before Israelis can change the way outsiders think about us, we must change the way we think about ourselves. This holds true for every people of any nation, but in a country which, pound-for-pound, draws more attention than any other in the world, it is critical.
What this issue shows is that Israeli expression speaks for itself. It's enough to give real, daily Israeli culture an avenue into the world to change hearts and minds. And in doing so, in offering air and sunlight to this growing environment, the people here—the dancers, the painters, the ad-men/artists, the inventors of flying cars, the Israel-besotted foreigners whom you'll meet in this issue—these people can create a total that is far more than the sum of parts. They are now creating a brand new culture, situated between East and West, and only 62 years old; with the nutrient attention of the world, with a flow of ideas that blurs outside and inside, just the thought of the full potential is electrifying.
This issue is our soft power issue. It reflects all of this—the power of the Israeli personality and the latent ability to affect the world not by strategized intention, but by being natural. This issue itself is not as much a description of soft power, which could be called influence by attraction, as it is a little bit of the stuff itself. By putting this issue into your hands, we are inviting you into the Israel we know. By reading and responding to it, you are stepping inside. We hope you like what you see—and smell, and hear, and taste, and touch.