New to Israel's Culture Wars: Hebrew Edition of Playboy

Even as Binyamin Netanyahu continues to struggle to put a coalition together, delayed by the refusal of Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid Party to serve in a coalition with the religious parties, Israel's secular/religious culture wars have a new player: Playboy magazine has launched its first Hebrew-language edition, based in Israel. And, according to The Jerusalem Post, 

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner on Tuesday lauded Israel as a country sharing the core values of his magazine in a pre-recorded message at the launch of Playboy Israel, the first Hebrew version of the men's magazine.

My first thought was that Mr. Hefner must never have been in Mea Shearim,where women in shorts are sometimes stoned, and my second was that  perhaps he was referring to the fact that he is as old as a Biblical patriarch, but in fact, he apparently meant that both were devoted to a free press.

Editions of Playboy in English and other languages have been available in Israel, but this is the first locally-produced edition and the first in Hebrew. (For those Hebrew-only readers who really do want to buy it for the articles.)