Ehud Barak Caught Reading Tchelet on Israel TV

On 18 July 2010, Israel Channel 2 News filmed Defense Minister Ehud Barak waiting for a meeting with opposition leader Tzipi Livni. Behind the partially opened door, you can clearly see how Minister Barak takes advantage of his spare time – by reading Shalem's Hebrew quarterly Tchelet!

Click here to view an enlarged version of the picture, and here for Tchelet's home page (Hebrew).

Shalem's Daniel Gordis presents a new reading of the Tower of Babel narrative

In the 40^th issue of Azure, Shalem Senior Vice President Daniel Gordis demonstrates that the concept of nationality—that is, of a distinct group identity based on common language, culture, ethnicity, and land—was not a modern European innovation, but rather an integral part of the Jewish tradition from its very beginnings. Moreover, he concludes, it is an argument in favor of the ethnic-cultural state as an indispensable condition for human freedom and flourishing. Click here to read the full essay.

Shalem Founder Hazony's latest "Jerusalem Letters"

In his most recent edition of “Jerusalem Letters,” Shalem Provost Yoram Hazony reviews a recently published book by Harvard Professor Eric Nelson. “Nelson offers a refreshingly bold reinterpretation according to which the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic texts in fact had a massive impact on the thought of the 17th century,” writes Hazony. Click here to read more about Eric Nelson’s book, and here to read Hazony’s assessment of it in “Jerusalem Letters”: