Well, we thought that a change would be refreshing. We wanted to attract people whose eyes might just gloss over when the latest issue lands in their mailbox. We wanted them to sit up and take note of the good reading material and information inside ESRAmagazine.

Which is where our new designer came along – literally out of nowhere! His name is Anthony Green and he and his wife, Tay, made aliyah from the UK less than a year ago and have settled in Modiin.

Anthony has had more than 40 years’ journalism experience in the UK, first as a reporter and then as a page designer on a daily newspaper. He later edited a weekly for 16 years in his home city of Leeds. During frequent visits to Israel, Anthony always read ESRAmagazine and says he’s been itching for ages to give it a ‘new set of clothes’. He is being helped by a young new designer, Nitzan Krivine, and they are making a great team.

We’ve changed presentation, concepts, the logo, the typefaces, muddled the order, but all the regular features are still here.

We hope you like what we’ve done. But there’s bound to be a swathe of opinion on the matter. And we’re sure you, our devoted readers, can’t wait to let us know your thoughts.

So please take up the challenge.

Whether its bouquets or brickbats we’d like to hear what you’ve got to say.

We’ll print a selection of your letters in the next issue. Please send them online or email them to esramag@esra.org.il.

In the meantime, we hope you continue enjoying your new-look ESRAmagazine and find it an even better read than before. 

There are other changes too. Our magazine administrator returned to South Africa and we were happy to welcome back on board Rhonda Abramson, who worked for us some six years ago. She fell into a period of holidays – Pesach, Yom Haatzmaut – which cut off working days and made her job of canvassing adverts that much more difficult. We thank our regular advertisers for staying with us, our news ones for joining us, and invite those of you who have not yet thought of advertising in ESRAmagazine to think seriously of doing so. 

And if all those changes were not enough, the building which we are in is under repairs and we have temporarily relocated and will be working from Poleg in Netanya. Please call our new temporary number 09 891 0611. 

We have launched two new competitions – one on short stories – A Fateful Moment - and the other on photography. We look forward to your entries. 

Happy Shavuot and we look forward to hearing from you, 

Merle