David Giladi, originally from Transylvania (now Romania), was a writer and journalist who was among the founders of the newspaper Maariv. He has a sister, Merav, who is a clinical psychologist. Another sister, Michal, died in a car accident in 1984. His paternal grandfather Bela (Meir) Lampel, a lawyer and Zionist activist, was murdered in Mauthausen concentration camp, while his great-grandmother Hermione Lampel was sent to Auschwitz, where she was murdered in a gas chamber. Lapid grew up in Tel Aviv and London. His childhood home in Tel Aviv was in the Yad Eliyahu neighborhood, in a residential building known as the Journalists' Residence, as several prominent journalists lived there. He attended high school at the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium, but struggled with learning disabilities and dropped out without earning a bagrut certificate. Lapid spent most of his mandatory military service in the Israel Defense Forces as a military correspondent for the IDF's weekly newspaper, Bamahane ("In the base camp"). He has given different versions of how he began his service in the IDF before being transferred to Bamahane, alternatively claiming to have begun his service in the Armored Corps until he was transferred after suffering an asthma attack due to a smoke grenade and to have started his service in the Israeli Air Defense Command before being pulled out due to suffering an asthma attack from dust and haze during basic training. After completing his military service, he began working as a reporter for Maariv and published poetry in literary journals. He also had a career as an amateur boxer. In the mid-1980s, Lapid married Tamar Friedman. The marriage produced one son, Yoav (born 1987). The couple divorced after the birth of their son. He later married Lihi Lapid, with whom he has two children. The couple lives in the Ramat Aviv Gimel neighborhood of Tel Aviv. He attends the Daniel Centers for Progressive Judaism, a Reform synagogue in Tel Aviv. Journalism and media career In 1988, at age 25, Lapid was appointed editor of Yedioth Tel Aviv, a local newspaper published by the Yedioth Ahronoth group. In 1991, he began writing a weekly column in a nationwide newspaper's weekend supplement—first for Maariv, and later for its competitor, Yedioth Ahronoth. His column's name, "Where's the Money?", became his political slogan decades later. In 1994, Lapid started on TV, hosting the leading Friday evening talk show on Israel TV's Channel 1.