David Horovitz

We'd willingly have forgone the bookends to The Jerusalem Report's first decade - the clashes on the Temple Mount and beyond. But if part of

what is unfolding sometimes seems depressingly familiar, there was much that was fresh and unexpected for us to cover in our first 10 years of publication, and the following pages of edited highlights represent a reminder, a memento, the flavor of an unforgettable decade.

We've enjoyed scrolling back through the years as we made our selections. But then, we've always enjoyed producing this magazine; that's evident from the number of writers from those early years who are still writing for us today. And you've reciprocated, helping us grow steadily into the well-established magazine we are now, with over 250,000 readers in more than 70 countries around the world.

We've won our fair share of awards and plaudits - a New York Times writer graciously described us recently as "the best periodical published in Israel, in English or Hebrew."

We've broken a good many important stories - on everything from Nazi victims' money in dormant Swiss bank accounts, to Jews left behind in distant parts of Ethiopia, to European capitulation in the face of Iran's cynical threats of terrorism.

We've identified and documented the deeper trends that shape Israel, the region, the Jewish diaspora and the complicated relationship between them, with groundbreaking, ahead-of-the-pack pieces ranging across the Americanization of Israel, early Palestinian preparation for statehood, disquiet over the degree to which money now dominates discussion of the Holocaust, and the wooing of Jews by other Jews to "make aliyah" to countries other than Israel.

And we've sought, always, to achieve a founding ambition, and bridge the gulf between Israel and the ever-changing mosaic that is the Jewish world - a role we played most importantly, I believe, in sounding the alarm when the last Israeli government briefly contemplated legislation on conversion to Judaism that, to Conservative and Reform Jews abroad, smacked of delegitimization.

We know, from the phone calls and e-mails accusing us of everything from Hamas membership to intolerable pro-settler bias, that as well as informing, challenging and entertaining you, we've also sometimes infuriated some of you. But we have always striven for honesty and accuracy, and the indignation, comfortingly, has come from across the political and religious spectrums. Crucially, we've benefited throughout the decade from that most essential of freedoms - the right to report without any editorial intervention, ever, from our owners.

It's been our privilege to have produced The Jerusalem Report these past 10 years - a magazine, rare indeed in this day and age, of entirely original writing, from correspondents and columnists in almost every corner of the Middle East and the Jewish world. We, the staff, thank you, our readers, for bringing us to this 10th anniversary. Now let's brace ourselves for the next decade.

(The full text of many of the articles excerpted in the following pages will soon be posted in a 10th-anniversary feature on our website, at jrep.com)