Each issue opens – following the table of contents and editorial – by a 'programmatic' article criticizing some aspect of the manner in which study and research in the human disciplines are conducted in the Israeli academic world.

The main aim of Katharsis is to raise academic standards by exposing errors, distortions and wilful deceptions in sub-standard publications; but some of the reviews praise works of serious scholarship and hold them up as examples to be followed.

Each issue ends with the section Remembrance of Former Generations, which includes a critical article or two by one of the leading Israeli scholars of the past century, preceded by a survey of his life and an assessment of his contributions to knowledge.

Each issue also has a number of short, 1–2 page, 'pearls': quotations from books or articles pretending to present the reader with proper facts and explanations, while being full of basic errors.

The present editors are Yehuda Friedlander, John Glucker, Alon Harel, Doron Mendels, and Amos Edelheit.