1994    The Shalem Center is founded in Jerusalem by scholars and philanthropists from Israel and the Diaspora, with the aim of developing ideas capable of sustaining and unifying the Jewish people, and enriching and strengthening the State of Israel. The founders, led by Yoram Hazony and Daniel Polisar, establish a long-term plan for research, publication, and education, culminating in the establishment in Jerusalem of Israel’s first liberal arts college.

1995    Shalem recruits its first class of Graduate Fellows, a dozen top students chosen from a pool drawn from around the world—to take part in an intensive, year-long seminar, and to write an original research paper under the supervision of the Center’s scholars.

1996    Under the direction of founding editor-in-chief Ofir Haivry, Shalem launches Azure, a journal of culture and public affairs, and its sister publication in Hebrew, Techelet. Today, both are successful quarterlies appearing in print and on-line, and Techelet is the largest-circulation general interest journal in Israel.

1997    The Center launches its publishing house, Shalem Press, and debuts with the first-ever Hebrew translation of Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. Since then, the Leviathan series of classics from the Western tradition has brought to the Israeli public more than two dozen books never before available, including The Federalist by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, Hobbes' Leviathan, and Mill’s On Liberty.

1998    Shalem launches a Senior Fellows program to encourage the research and writing of agenda-shaping books, and initially places an emphasis on recruiting scholars of Zionist History and Thought. The first to join is historian Michael Oren, who embarks on a project to write the definitive history of the Six-Day War, based on archival sources from Israel, the U.S., Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Arab world.

1999   With the untimely passing of philanthropist Zalman C. Bernstein, a founding board member of the Shalem Foundation and a major catalyst behind Shalem’s early successes, the Center establishes the Bernstein Memorial Lecture in Jewish Political Thought. Initial talks by Irving Kristol, Ruth Wisse, Ruth Gavison, and Fania Oz-Salzberger attract nearly 1,000 participants each, and secure the series’ status as the largest annual lecture in Jerusalem.  

2000    Basic Books and The New Republic publish Yoram Hazony’s The Jewish State, a retelling of Zionist intellectual history that becomes the most widely discussed Jewish book in North America that year. In Israel, its publication ignites a controversy over the drift towards post-Zionism in the Israeli school system. The Knesset holds hearings, the Education Ministry appoints an evaluating committee, and in the end adopts guidelines for presenting to students a more positive perspective on Zionist history.

2001    The Shalem Center establishes a Departmant of Philosophy, Political Theory and Religion (PPR), which is charged with developing an innovative approach to the disciplines that form the heart of the modern humanities curriculum. By studying the Western tradition side-by-side with classical Jewish sources, the department aims to provide a more fruitful environment for the development of philosophical and historical syntheses capable of informing and enriching the lives of Jews and non-Jews alike. 

2002    Michael Oren’s Six Days of War, published by Oxford University Press, becomes an international bestseller and provides scholarly weight behind the traditional narrative of this conflict as one of defense and not aggression, and as a story rich in leadership and heroism. This success aids the Center in expanding its program in Zionist History and Thought, which includes the recruiting of well-known author Yossi Klein Halevi.

2003    Shalem Press’s Democratic Thought Series releases the Hebrew edition of Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, which becomes a #1 national bestseller in Israel and remains on the best-selling charts of Ha’aretz for 20 weeks. Within the next four years, four more bestsellers are published in this series, including works by Henry Kissinger, Alain Finkielkraut, and Natan Sharansky.

2004    The Shalem Center convenes an international conference in Jerusalem on political Hebraism, with the aim of starting a movement within academia to reconsider the nature and scope of the Jewish contribution to the core ideas of Western civilization. On the heels of the conference, which was spearheaded by Meirav Jones, Shalem launches Hebraic Political Studies, the first scholarly, peer-reviewed journal in this field.

2005    Shalem enters the field of archaeology, sponsoring an excavation in the City of David by senior fellow Eilat Mazar. With the backing of Roger and Susan Hertog, Mazar and her excavation team carry out an intensive, multi-year dig that reveals a massive structure dating to the 10th-century B.C.E., the time of David and Solomon. Evidence gathered thus far indicates that this structure might well correspond to the palace of David described in the Bible.

2006    Shalem completes its first year of a pilot program to offer semester-length courses in Hebrew to Israeli undergraduates. After opening with 40 students in three courses, the program attracts more than 1,000 applicants in its second year, of whom nearly 200 are selected to take part in over a dozen courses on subjects ranging from Jewish thought and political philosophy, to constitutional development and economic policy. 

2007    With the support of Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Natan Sharansky establishes the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center. Sharansky, whose aim is to develop the strategies needed by Israel and the West to grapple with an increasingly challenging international climate, is joined at the Institute by former IDF chief-of-staff Moshe Ya’alon and by Prof. Martin Kramer. Later on, well-known Arab affairs commentator Ehud Ya’ari joins as a senior fellow.

2008    The Shalem Center develops a detailed time line for launching Israel’s first liberal arts college, creates and refines a core curriculum that will be required for all students, develops innovative programs of study for majors in philosophy and in Middle East studies, and begins recruiting additional faculty.

2009    The Shalem Center submits its application to the Council on Higher Education to accredit a four-year, BA-granting institution in Jerusalem. Appropriate sub-committees of the Council on Higher Education are created to review the application, with approval expected in 2011. In addition, the Shalem Center’s Michael Oren is appointed Ambassador to the United States, while Distinguished Fellow Natan Sharansky becomes the head of the Jewish Agency for Israel.