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To Our Readers

Before his recent, untimely death, Robert asked his wife Silvia and three of their closest friends to find a way of keeping Ariga alive. That has also been the request of many of Robert's long-time readers and friends.

Ariga will continue. It will keep Robert's legacy alive and continue to promote his unwavering belief that individuals, through their creativity and endeavour, can bring about change - and bring about peace. There will inevitably be changes, but all the material from the site's inception in 1995 until today will remain available, either directly through links or in the archive.

The Daily Situation will continue to appear, written by Simon Spungin, though there will no longer be a daily update. The literary mag will continue, with Mike Eilan editing the poetry. The art galleries, the Ariga daily quotes and other original sections will also be part of Ariga in the post-Robert era. We urge the poets, the artists and everyone else who has contributed to Ariga in the past to continue doing so.

In the near future, we hope to launch the Ariga Blog, a platform for opinion and debate on the issues that confront us all - peace, social justice and the joys of creativity. Please join in.

Many people are contributing to this effort. Thanks to all, in particular to Simon Spungin, for the daily report, and to Oren Bar of B.V. Tech for his work in reshaping the site and keeping it going.

Silivia Rosenberg, Itai Frost, Michael Eilan, Roy Isacowitz

Today's Situation

BETWEEN ANNAPOLIS AND JERUSALEM, October 31, 2007

After the drama of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's 'prostate speech,' the Israeli press focuses Wednesday on a different kind of drama - the disturbances in the early hours of Tuesday morning the Druze Galilee village of Peki'in >>>>> To the full text

Robert Rosenberg 1951 - 2006

Robert Rosenberg, the inspiration behind Ariga for the past 11 years, died on the morning of Wednesday October 25. Robert touched and enriched many lives and his legacy will continue to live in these pages. The Ariga Trust will continue to publish essays, poems and art dedicated to the memory of Robert Rosenberg and his unyielding belief in peace and sanity.
In the meantime, those of you who wish to send condolences to his wife Silvia, his daughter Amber and the family can do so here robert.condolences@gmail.com.

A Passion for Life and Peace

Born in Boston and raised in Newton, Massachusetts, Robert Rosenberg was educated at Tufts University and Tel Aviv University, and held a master's degree in education from Harvard. He had many intense interests but journalism always played a major part in his life, mainly due to his passionate concern for Israeli society.

After university he joined the UPI news agency in Tel Aviv as a telex operator, initially working for free until his incredible speed, sharp writing and incisive understanding won him a position as a correspondent. This was followed by more than a decade at The Jerusalem Post, where he covered several major beats, co-founded the paper's weekly supplement In Jerusalem and then wrote the highly acclaimed column "Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv."

He also served as Israel correspondent for Time Magazine and later, for U.S. News and World Report. His freelance work appeared in international publications including Playboy, Penthouse and the Reader's Digest.

Starting in 1998, he was a senior staff editor, writer and translator at the Haaretz English Edition.

His experiences as a police reporter became the basis for four well-received novels: "Crimes of the City," "The Cutting Room," "House of Guilt" and "An Accidental Murder." All four books featured detective Avram Cohen, a shrewd, brandy-loving Holocaust survivor who embodied Rosenberg's notion that only a very well-informed pragmatic morality could get to the bottom of mysteries and emerge with a solution in which justice was served as the public peace preserved.

A fifth book, "Secret Soldier: The True Life Story of Israel's Greatest Commando," was written with Moshe (Muki) Betser.

Rosenberg's prescient interest in computers and the Internet, combined with his dedication to the cause of peace and social justice, led him to found the Ariga Web site in 1995. Ariga was always way ahead of its time - Rosenberg was blogging about the peace process in 1996, before the word "blog" had even been coined. He is widely considered to be the grandfather of all peace-related sites in the Middle East.

Ariga, a Web site devoted to "peace and pleasure at the intersection of three continents," was an intensely personal labor of love. It included a daily column about Israeli and Middle Eastern politics called The Situation, a poetry 'zine and an eclectic compendium of information from enthusiastic friends.

Another product of his abiding fascination with Internet technologies was Datasphere Ltd, a company that he co-founded in 1998 and which created Koldoon, the world's largest database of financial data on technology-based private equity companies.

Rosenberg is survived by his wife Silvia, his daughter Amber, his mother Dolly, his brother Peter and his sister Amy, and mourned by a large circle of friends and admirers.
(With thanks to Ha'aretz newspaper)