Avi Mayer named new editor-in-chief of 'The Jerusalem Post'

Avi Mayer has been named the new editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, the newspaper announced Tuesday.

Mayer, 38, served as international spokesman of the Jewish Agency and former chairman Natan Sharansky before becoming a senior executive at the American Jewish Committee. He will replace Yaakov Katz, who is stepping down after seven years in the role.

“I am honored to take the reins of this venerable paper from Yaakov, who has cultivated and grown it over the past seven years,” Mayer said Tuesday.

“For 90 years, The Jerusalem Post has offered the world a vital window into events in Israel,” he said. “Today, the paper is the leading English-language media outlet in Israel and the Jewish world, and it plays a central role in shaping and strengthening the connections of millions around the world to Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish people.

“I look forward to working with the Post’s outstanding staff to continue upholding the highest standards of journalistic excellence, to offer our readers content of relevance and quality, to fortify the paper’s position as a leading media outlet in Israel and the Jewish world, and to lead it into the future.”

Katz, who previously served as the Post’s military correspondent, will continue to write a weekly column for the paper.

“It has been a great privilege and honor to edit The Jerusalem Post in recent years,” he said. “I would like to thank Eli Azur and Inbar Ashkenazi for their confidence and wish Avi great success in the role.”Ashkenazi, CEO of The Jerusalem Post Group, praised Katz for his leadership of the paper.

“Yaakov led The Jerusalem Post across various platforms with great success. He has contributed greatly to making the paper, which this year celebrated its ninetieth year, the leading English-language media outlet in Israel and the most-read in the Jewish world and for that I thank him on behalf of myself, of the Post’s staff, and of the paper’s readers,” she said.

Mayer was born in New York and raised in Jerusalem. He attended the University of Maryland, where he was a writer and editor for the Jewish student newspaper. He served in the IDF Spokesman’s Office as a spokesman to the international media.

Mayer has one of the largest online followings of any Jewish communal figure, and his writings regularly appear in major publications and media platforms around the world. He lives in Jerusalem and will take up his new post next month.