Shalem Center

The Shalem Center is an academic research institute in Jerusalem established in 1994 with the goal of developing the ideas needed to guide and sustain the Jewish state and the Jewish people in the coming decades. The Shalem center runs six research institutes and its own press, and its senior fellows include best-selling author and historian Michael Oren, former Knesset member Natan Sharansky (may 2005) and former Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon. The Shalem Center is a non-partisan academic research institute encompassing scholars whose views run the gamut from left to right. The Center does not take institutional positions on political issues, allows full academic freedom to its scholars and students, and devotes a significant portion of its resources to scholarly endeavors that are essentially apolitical.. [ [http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/Admin/FileServer/49d265ca8c59278ccee227e00aa21890.pdf] The Chronicle of Higher education] [ [http://www.jewishjournal.com/israel/article/coming_soon_a_jewish_liberal_arts_college_20080229/ Jewish Journal] ]

History

The center is located in two buildings within the German Colony neighborhood of Jerusalem and has an annual budget of $10 million. The centre was founded by Yoram Hazony, Daniel Polisar, Joshua Weinstein and who knew each other from their student days at Princeton University. The institution's president is Polisar, who is described as its operational and guiding arm. Hazony has been described as a former confidant of Benjamin Netanyahu and preceded Polisar as president. The Shalem Center has educational programs for graduate and undergraduate students from Israel and abroad, scholars writing books about Zionist history and ideas, the history of the Jewish people, Biblical archaeology, Jewish moral and political thought, and strategic studies. It is also houses an institute promoting a free market agenda in Israel.

Funding

In 1991 Hazony, Polisar and Weinstein obtained the initial funding of a few thousand dollars, from Barry Klein, to set up the Shalem Center Association. [ [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/929659.html Ha'aretz] ]

In may 2005 the Las Vegas-based Adelson Family Foundation announced that the Shalem Center in Jerusalem was to receive a $4.5 million grant to enable creation of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies, which Sharansky heads and in which Ya'alon is a "distinguished fellow." [ [http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=177400025 Foundation Centre] ] [ [http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/media/?did=61&aid=02d78a5e75e6e14b61ae44be8278ba13 Shalem Center] ]

Klarman Family Foundation of Boston and George and Pamela Rohr of New York each made a commitment of $1 million in support of establishing a liberal arts college at the Shalem Center. [ [http://tzvee.blogspot.com/2008/06/shalem-center-to-become-liberal-arts.html Tzvee's Talmudic Blog] by Tzvee Teaneck]

People

The Shalem Center has affiliated with a number of writers, journalists and scholars:

* Eilat Mazar
* Michael Oren a reserve officer and war veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces as well as a former adviser to the Israeli government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
* Martin Kramer
* Meirav Jones
* Joshua Weinstein
* Yossi Klein Halevi
* Yoram Hazony (the Center's founder)
* Natan Sharansky
* Moshe Ya'alon
* Noah Pollak

Publications

The Center is home to the quarterlies "Azure" and "Hebraic Political Studies", the latter a peer-reviewed scholarly journal.

The Center's publishing house, Shalem Press, publishes classic Western democratic thought in Hebrew translation, as well as Jewish thought in English, which include new editions of classic works, as well as the works of theologian Eliezer Berkovits.

Best-known for books like Michael Oren's best-selling history books "Power, Faith and Fantasy" [ [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393058263 Amazon] , Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present ISBN 9780393058260] and "Six Days of War" [ [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0345461924 Amazon] Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East (Oxford University Press) ISBN 9780195151749 ISBN 0195151747] and Yoram Hazony's "The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel's Soul" [ [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0465029027 Amazon] ] , and publishing Natan Sharansky's "A Case for Democracy" in Hebrew.

ee also

* Sheldon Adelson

References

External links

* [http://www.shalemcenter.org.il The Shalem Center Homepage]