Menashe Raz

Menashe Raz died on 24 September 2026 in Herzliya at the age of 80. Ynet, in a report by Ran Boker, announced that the veteran journalist, director and television figure had died at 80. The Jerusalem Post published the same day that the Israeli journalist, television presenter and director had died on Thursday aged 80, noting his work as a presenter on Channel 1. Channel 13, C14, ice and other Israeli outlets carried matching reports.

Kan News issued an official tribute: it mourned Raz as a journalist, director and long time presenter of public broadcasting who joined Israeli Television in the early 1970s as a news reporter and documentary filmmaker and later filled many roles on television and radio, including as the first presenter of Shirim VeShaarim on Kol Yisrael. The statement offered condolences to his family, friends and colleagues.

As of the day of the first reports, major outlets had not published a detailed medical cause of death. Funeral or memorial arrangements had not yet been widely announced.

Menashe Raz was born on 28 August 1946 in Gedera, then in Mandatory Palestine. His father, Arieh Raz, served as a colonel in the Israel Defense Forces. The younger Raz entered the military academic reserve and, while at university, took a Kol Yisrael announcers course. He left the reserve track and enlisted for service on Galei Tzahal, Israel's army radio, where he worked as a military correspondent, editor and programme presenter.

After his discharge he completed studies in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Those early years of radio training and army broadcasting set the pattern for a career that would move between news reporting, presenting and documentary direction.

Raz joined Kol Yisrael after university and presented a wide range of programmes: news bulletins, light music and pop shows, the Hebrew song chart, and he was the first host and presenter of Shirim VeShaarim. At the end of 1972 he joined Israeli Television as a news reporter and documentary filmmaker.

On Channel 1, within the Israel Broadcasting Authority, he held several senior roles. He edited and presented Mabat LaHadashot, reported on political, military and general news, and edited and hosted Mishak HaShabbat and Mesibat Itonaim. In 1979 he won the Kinor David prize for best documentary of the year for a series on conditions in Israeli prisons; after the series aired, the Knet Committee was set up to examine the prison system.

In reserve duty with the IDF he was responsible for operational documentation of the Israeli Air Force and took part in filming air force operations, including aspects of the airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Among his notable films were Summer Rains (with Ram Landes) on the Gaza disengagement from the IDF command perspective; HaAchat on Squadron 201 in the Yom Kippur War; coverage of the Eros A1 imaging satellite launch; films on the Palmach struggle against the British and on illegal immigration after the Holocaust; Farewell to Sinai on the evacuation of air force and IDF bases from Sinai; and other documentary projects. His voice also narrated the IDF Spokesperson film Two Fingers from Sidon on the withdrawal of IDF forces from Lebanon to the security zone.

For five years he taught as an external lecturer in the Department of Film and Television at Tel Aviv University, and he also taught at Tel Hai College, Sapir College, the College of Management and on a public relations course at Bar Ilan University. In 1999 he left the Broadcasting Authority to run communications and spokesperson work for the Centre Party ahead of Knesset elections. He later served as director general of the Gabriel Sherover Foundation and as communications manager for ImageSat, a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries. In 2003 he returned to journalism as a host and reporter at Channel 10 News. In 2011 he announced plans to run for the Knesset on the Kadima list. He also sat on boards and committees including a special hasbara committee of the Israel Medical Association, the management of the Council for Peace and Security, and the board of Matev.

Raz lived in Herzliya. According to his Hebrew Wikipedia biography, his daughter Maya Raz is married to the actor Mark Ivanir. In 2014, after Operation Protective Edge, he was reported to have lived for a year at Kibbutz Nahal Oz, though that detail carries a citation needed note on Wikipedia.

Public tributes after his death spoke of his family, friends and colleagues without listing a full family tree in the major news reports. Kan News said it shared in the sorrow of his family, friends and fellow journalists.

Raz belonged to the generation of Israeli radio and television professionals who shaped public broadcasting from the single channel era into the multi channel age. Viewers associated him with Mabat, with Press Conference style current affairs, and with documentary work that could have institutional consequences, as with the prison series that preceded the Knet Committee.

Kan News remembered him as one of the outstanding journalists of public broadcasting over many long years. His Kinor David award, his teaching of film and media students, and his air force documentary work kept his name in the institutional memory of Israeli media and the IDF Spokesperson films of his era. For many Israelis who grew up with Channel 1 as the national screen, his voice was part of the evening news and of national commemorative broadcasts.