The story of Modan Publishing House starts in 1970, when young couple Shula and Oded Modan were in their mid 20’s
.Shula was a social worker and Oded was an accountant for a very small publishing house in Jerusalem
.When the owner of the publishing house decided to sell the business, Shula and Oded decided to start an adventure and buy it, making their first steps in the slow evolving, conservative Israeli book industry
.In 1973 Oded met two other small publishers and together they decided to establish a new publishing house which carried the names of the three partners: Zmora, Bitan, Modan - ZBM
Each partner kept their own imprint, and within a few years ZBM became the biggest publishing house in Israel, publishing titles by authors such as Gunter Grass, Millen Kundera
.and Kurt Vonnegut, brands like Barbapapa, and well-known Israeli authors
In 1982, the partners decided to split. Of ZBM’s assets, which included a vast back catalogue, printing press and a magazine, Modan got to keep the cookbook catalogue
.Those were the early days of the cookbooks industry in Israel, and soon Modan dominated the market
.Oded invested the money that he earned in publishing new titles in all genres and started expanding Modan’s catalogue by buying backlists of small publishing houses, as well as partnering with other small houses who had expertise he did not have
.In 2005, realizing that a publishing house must have its own place where it can always sell its books, Oded bought one third of Tzomet Sfarim bookstores chain
Modan publishing house grew bigger, adding to its list authors such as John Grisham, David Baldacci, Stephen King, Cormac McCarthy, Karl Ove Knausgård, Stefan Zweig, Alice Munro, Raymond Carver, Shel Silverstein, Eric Carle, Donna Tartt, Kristin Hannah, Ruth Ware, Ken Follett, Lucinda Riley, Jennifer Weiner, Nicholas Sparks, James Patterson, Julian Barnes, Rachel Cusk, Brit Bennett, Maggie O’Farrell and, Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, Lee Berdugo and Anthony Browne
In 2016 Modan, known mainly for its translated literature and cookbooks, bought Keter Books, a 60-year-old publishing house with a prestigious list of Israeli authors including Amos Oz, Zeruya Shalev, Savyon Liebrecht, Yoel Hoffman and many others
.Keter remained an independent house with its own editorial section, publishing many Israeli authors – both established and new voices, as well as nonfiction, children and
.Today the Modan Group has full ownership of two publishing houses – Modan and Keter, 50% ownership in nine smaller publishing houses and 33% in Tzomet Sfarim, a chain of 95 stores
.Our catalogue holds over 12,000 titles, and we publish over 200 new titles each year with a strong passion for books and publishing and endless motivation to keep the fire going stronger and stronger