Zenith (magazine)

The magazine was founded by six students of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Hamburg in summer 1999 and was initially a non-profit project.^[4] The founders wanted to introduce new perspectives about the MENA region to the German media landscape, which had long been the preserve of a handful of specialists, such as Peter Scholl-Latour and Gerhard Konzelmann,^[5] and to challenge long-held stereotypes about the region.^[6]

In the spring of 2000, the association "forum zenith e.V." was founded. The association was the official publisher of the magazine zenith until 2008. In October 2012, the German language flagship magazine zenith was relaunched with a new design and it now features an integrated business section. The zenith editorial team carried research into the lives of Egyptians and Tunisians following the fall of dictatorial rule,^[7] which culminated in the publication of Diktatur bewältigen (Confronted Past) in 2013.

In July 2013, zenith fell victim to an attack by hackers reportedly from Turkey having run a cover comprising a map of Kurdistan and devoting the issue to the topic of Kurdistan.^[8] As of spring 2015, Candid Foundation assumed editorial responsibility for zenith magazine, in partnership with the publishing house Deutscher Levante Verlag. The non-profit Candid Foundation describes itself as a “think-and-do tank”.^[9] Gerlach told Der Spiegel that this was because zenith was “not a commercial product”; through the Candid Foundation, the aim was to build a community-based model for sustainable specialist journalism.^[10] The Candid Foundation also organises the discussion series zenithTalk, the zenith Photo Award, and develops events and conferences worldwide.

In 2017, zenith launched a new website incorporating English, German and Arabic content. The online articles are generally available without a paywall and primarily published in German.

In August 2019, zenith celebrated its 20th anniversary. Editor-in-chief Daniel Gerlach commented on the occasion by stating that zenith's capability to survive and grow in an age of intense competition and general decline of print media was based on its ability to successfully cultivate a niche in the market and curate an approach to reporting on the Middle East that was both distant and empirical as well as empathetic.^[11] In 2019, zenith editors and contributors collaborated with the Federal Agency for Civic Education to produce the multimedia project, Atlas des Arabischen Frühlings (AdAF), which provides an educational guide through the revolutions of 2011 in the Arab world.^[12]

The Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 and the subsequent Israeli war in Gaza marked an editorial turning point for zenith: in the public debate, the magazine adopted an explicitly contextualising perspective, which Gerlach outlined, among other places, in an extensive interview with Jung & Naiv (July 2025). In doing so, he argued for a distinction between the “Middle East conflict” and the “Palestine question” and, together with the constitutional lawyer Naseef Naeem, had already outlined a scenario for ending the war in November 2023 that involved a multinational Arab security force combined with Israeli security guarantees.^[13]

zenith is widely considered to be the most popular, most frequently quoted and widest distributed MENA-focused magazine in the German-speaking world which reporting on the economy, politics, society and culture of the Islamic world as well as Israel. zenith has been quoted in the Austrian daily newspaper Der Standard as being "a contact point for people who think about the Middle East outside the mainstream media."^[14] On the celebration of zenith's 20th anniversary, the Berlin State Secretary Sawsan Chebli spoke of the importance of a publication like zenith to provide the much needed depth in the conversation about the Middle East and the Islamic World.^[15] Among its media partners are Spiegel Online, Die Welt, brand eins, TEDx, Goethe Institute, Bertelsmann Foundation and the German Commission for UNESCO.

zenith is independent both financially and content-wise and is published by Deutsche Levante Verlag GmbH in Berlin. Its editorial board includes Moritz Behrendt, Asiem El Difraoui, Yasemin Ergin,^[16] Daniel Gerlach,^[17] Christian Meier,^[18][19] Veit Raßhofer and Jörg Schäffer.

Currently, zenith is concentrating on the content of the magazine as well as supporting the professional development of young journalists and photographers. The magazine views itself as a platform for young, critical, alternative journalism on a region whose image in the world is significantly marked by biased and ideologically entrenched reporting. Many former and current contributors of zenith work as foreign correspondents for major German news outlets such as Spiegel Online, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, ZDF, Deutschlandradio, Die Zeit or Die Welt.

Readers can subscribe to zenith through the so-called zenith Club membership, which includes delivery of the print edition twice a year. The core editorial offering for subscribers also includes regular Zoom meetings^[20] with experts and other events on the MENA region, as well as the weekly newsletter (Club Briefing), which provides background on current developments and overlooked issues in the Arab world. In addition to subscriptions and advertising, the magazine is financed through the non-profit sponsorship of the Candid Foundation.^[21]

Since 2013, editor-in-chief Gerlach has run the consulting institute zenith Council together with the constitutional lawyer Naseef Naeem; it focuses primarily on questions of statehood and law in the Arab world.^[22] zenith Council operates as an independent research and expert group that is closely linked in personnel terms to the Candid Foundation and the magazine, but functions independently in organisational terms. According to its own statements, the consulting institute prepares expert reports and policy analyses and advises, among others, international governmental and non-governmental organisations on issues of civil and political conflict resolution.^[23]

On its website, the magazine also operates thematic or regional subsections known as “channels”, which bundle distinct strands of reporting. The channel model makes it possible to integrate external cooperation partners and donor-funded projects into the editorial platform without burdening the core editorial team.^[24]

In January 2026, zenith launched the channel “Reporting Lebanon” on its English-language website, a collaborative journalism project that brings together independent Lebanese journalists to document everyday life in a country shaped by decades of political crises, economic collapse, and the Israeli invasion in autumn 2024.^[25]

The project is funded by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung MENA. Its first publication was a feature report by Hussein Chaabane on the reconstruction of the shrine of the Prophet Shimon al-Safa in the village of Chamaa in southern Lebanon, presented as a symbol of the rebuilding of collective memory after the Israeli attack.^[26]

“Reporting Lebanon” continues the tradition of the zenith reporting fellowship for journalists from Arab countries, which had already been awarded from 2020 onwards with the support of the German Federal Foreign Office.^[27]

In 2011, zenith ran its first photography award entitled "Muslims in Germany" in collaboration with Stiftung Mercator. The winning entries were exhibited in the Haus der Geschichte.^[28] The second edition of the zenith photography award was held in 2013.^[29] The photography award continued in 2017. again with the support of Stiftung Mercator,^[30] and an exhibition of the winners was held at the Museum in der Kulturbrauerei in Berlin.^[31] The winning entries also featured in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.^[32]