BEN-ZVI, SHLOMO

BEN-ZVI, SHLOMO (1964– ), media owner. Born in London as Michael Goldblum, Shlomo Ben Zvi was educated at Netiv Meir Yeshivah High School in Jerusalem and various other national-religious yeshivot in Israel and studied philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After making a substantial fortune in real estate and the technology sector in Europe, he decided to become active in the Israeli media at the start of the 21st century. His first venture was the Tekhelet cable TV channel, whose programming concentrated on different aspects of Jewish life and which began broadcasting in 2003. He also purchased 20 per cent of Israel's Channel Ten together with cosmetics heir ronald lauder , who purchased 40 per cent. He went on to concentrate his holdings in the right-wing and religious media, buying the weekly Makor Rishon in 2003 and acquiring control of the national-religious daily Ha-Ẓofeh and the monthly of the settlers movement, Nekudah, in 2004. His plans called for a relaunch of an expanded Makor Rishon in early 2005 and the start-up of a new right-wing daily newspaper. Ben Zvi was critical of the Israeli media for not being patriotic enough and for showing the IDF in a negative light. He was a member of the right-wing "Jewish Leadership" faction of the likud Party. (Anshel Pfeffer (2nd ed.)