Keter Publishing House

Keter Publishing House is one of the largest publishing companies in Israel, which also owns printing plants. Since 2005, its publishing activities have been carried out through its subsidiary,. It is a member of the.

History

Keter Publishing was founded in Jerusalem in 1959 as the "Israeli Science Translation Factory Ltd.", on the initiative of Teddy Kollek, who sought to find work for academic immigrants from Eastern Europe.[1][2] The Science Translation Factory employed hundreds of translators who translated scientific publications for various countries, such as the United States, England, and the Scandinavian countries, mainly from Russian to English.[2][3] In March 1961, the Science Translation Factory was converted into a government company called "Keter Publishing Factory Ltd." and operated from offices in the Givat Shaul industrial zone (Giv'at Shaul B). In 1964, the company began translating books for free distribution, not by invitation,[4]

Activity

Over the years, Keter has published books of almost all kinds, and also operates a large printing house that provides printing services to other publishing houses.

Authors

In order to attract leading Israeli writers to publish at Keter, it offered generous financial terms, including to Amos Oz, Ilana Gur and Benjamin Tammuz. It financed Yitzhak Ben Ner's one-year stay in the United States and Ephraim Sidon's one-year stay in London, in exchange for writing books.[21] In order to In order not to damage the prestigious image of the publishing house, and at the same time not to lose profits from the sale of translated popular literature of the romantic novel and pulp fiction, a separate subsidiary publishing house called "Shahaf" was established to publish these books.[22]

Other notable authors include David Grossman, Batya Gur, Amnon Jacont, Alona Kimchi, Shulamit Lapid, Israel Segal, A.B. Yehoshua.

Chain of bookstores

In the 1980s, "Keter Publishing" began operating a chain of bookstores. The first store opened in the Clal Center in Jerusalem in the summer of 1980.[23] The chain grew gradually and by 1988 already had 20 stores.[24] In November 1988, the chain opened its flagship store on Dizengoff Street, in the Passage Hod building, on the premises where the "Matzkin" department store had previously operated. The store was spread over three floors, built with an investment of one million dollars, and designed by Ada Karmi-Melamed, included a café and was called "the largest bookstore in the Middle East".[25][26] In early 1989, it also began operating 11 bookstores within the Mashbhir consumer chain,[27] in addition to the stores it operated inside theaters, so that in total that year it operated 33 stores.[28]

In late 1990, after the chain suffered losses, negotiations began to sell the chain's stores to Steimatzky, which at the same time was negotiating a partnership with "Ashtarg", a company that operated discount book fairs.[29][30] In March 1991, the chain also began to import books and magazines in foreign languages.[31] Finally, in June 1991, the chain was sold to a group of investors in the Eli Granit chain, who had previously managed the "Diyonun" chain.[32] The chain began operating under the name "Granit-Keter" but still suffered losses and closed its The flagship store on Dizengoff Street.[33] The entire chain closed a few years later.[34]