You can take the man out of Jerusalem, but you can’t take Jerusalem out of the man.
Shortly before our December meeting with Nachman Shai, the dean of Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), he and members of his staff took a brief pre-Hanukkah stroll through Mahaneh Yehuda market, tasting delicacies and chatting with vendors as they went along. “Every centimeter held a memory for me,” he told us at his office on the King David Street campus.
Shai, who has worked in journalism, and in military, management, diplomatic, political, and educational positions over the years, succeeded Rabbi Naama Kelman, who was dean for over 30 years. HUC-JIR, in its own words, educates leaders for service to the Reform Movement and the Jewish people worldwide as rabbis, cantors, educational leaders, nonprofit professionals, and pastoral counselors, and offers graduate programs to scholars and clergy of all faiths.
Though very well known in Israel, especially for his role as IDF spokesman during the Gulf War – and also in certain circles in the United States – Shai was relatively unknown to the HUC committee that interviewed him in the US. It was a very tough process in which the vetting committee spoke to his former colleagues, friends, and acquaintances.
Without the slightest sign of false modesty, Shai paid tribute to HUC President Dr. Andrew Rehfeld: “He is the one who made the brave decision to hire me and bring me into the HUC-JIR system.” Although he has not previously worked in a religious academic institution, Shai feels perfectly at home, not only because his position demands his presence in Jerusalem but also because it is so in line with his personal values.
His previous academic positions were in the American South: as visiting professor at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and before that at Emory University in Atlanta.
At Duke, he taught political science, with the main focus on Israel and the Middle East. He loved his students, and judging by their reaction when he told them that he was leaving, they loved him.
Though he now lives in Tel Aviv as his wife, Rivka, wanted to be closer to their daughters and grandchildren, he is in Jerusalem every day of the working week. Jerusalem is where he was born, where he went to school at the Gymnasia Rehavia, where he enrolled at the Hebrew University for part of his academic studies, and where he spent a large part of his multifaceted career.
If diversity were a person
Buzzwords generally have a relatively short shelf life, but “diversity” is one of the exceptions to the rule. Diversity touches our lives in the foods we eat, the subjects we study, the books we read, the way we dress, our political ideologies, the religions we practice – if at all – our ethnic and national ancestral backgrounds, the languages we speak, and more.
Shai is a personification of diversity.
In the state’s early years, diversity was discouraged, he told us. Israel’s founding prime minister David Ben-Gurion famously wanted to build a homogeneous nation, free from the trappings of the Diaspora. Yiddish, the common language European Jews brought with them to the Holy Land, was taboo in Ben-Gurion’s desire to create a melting pot society.
Foreign-sounding names with Russian or German suffixes were changed into Hebrew names. Some lent themselves to translation. Others kept the first syllable if it had a Hebrew meaning. Shai’s original surname, for instance, was Shaykevich. With the removal of the suffix, it became Shai, which in Hebrew means “gift.”
One couldn’t get a senior position in a government ministry with a foreign name, he recalled – to advance, they had to take on a Hebrew name.
Unlike many young boys, Shai never dreamed of being a cowboy or a fireman. For as long as he can remember, he wanted to be a journalist. This was prompted in part by his love of reading newspapers, as well as books, but perhaps more by the fact that his boyhood home was located close to a newspaper office.
Shai, the journalist and instant celeb
Shai’s career in journalism started when he was in the army as a member of a Nahal unit and writing for Bamahane, the now-defunct IDF weekly magazine.
In civilian life, he went on to work at Israel Radio (Kol Israel) now known as Reshet Bet, but still sometimes referred to as “Kol Israel” (the Voice of Israel) by the station broadcasters themselves. Shai went on to succeed military reporter Ron Ben Ishai after the latter moved on to become the military reporter for what was then known as Israel Television and is today KAN 11.
Although Shai eventually replaced Ben Ishai on television, his first love was and is radio.
He replaced Ben Ishai for a third time as commander-in-chief of Army Radio and, before and during the Gulf War, served as IDF spokesman. As someone who has occupied that position, he is full of praise for current IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, who he says is excellent.
The Gulf War was the first to be covered live by Israel Television, which meant that the war, no matter how far away it was, was brought straight into the nation’s living rooms, and naturally caused a great deal of consternation.
Shai’s calm voice and no-nonsense manner had a tranquilizing effect, especially when he told the anxiety-ridden to drink water. In some places, he was known as the “national Optalgin” – the drug Israelis often reach for to calm nerves and relieve pain and tension.
Since there was only one TV channel at the time, Shai became an instant celebrity. People recognized him in the street. Even members of the Arab population knew who he was, and today there are still many who remember him from the Gulf War period.
On the radio
Growing up, Shai lived in a divided Jerusalem. It was as a reporter for Israel Radio that he walked for the first time to the Western Wall, which did not exude the same grandeur as it does today.
This was before the advent of TV in Israel, other than Educational Television. Israel TV (ITV) only began broadcasting in 1968.
“The Israeli public was very much attuned to radio during the Six Day War,” he said. “In 1973, they were watching television, and in this war they’re getting their information from social media.”
Familiar with the history of radio in Israel, Shai says radio has changed dramatically. With the passing of the Israel Broadcasting Authority Law in 1965, radio became more independent.
Before that, particularly during the nascent years of the state, founding members Ben-Gurion and foreign minister Moshe Sharett used to control the newsroom and regarded the radio as a tool for hasbara, which relates to public diplomacy, though in fact was a form of propaganda to convince the Israeli public to accede to the government’s decisions.
“Today you can keep your name, your native language, and customs,” noted Shai.
In the immediate aftermath of the Six Day War, Shai was very busy covering the West Bank, east Jerusalem, the disputed territories, the police, and the terror attack in Zion Square.
During his radio career, he also had several scoops, one of the most memorable being in 1968 – as the first reporter to cover the genesis of Jewish settlement in Kiryat Arba and Hebron, when Religious Zionist activist Rabbi Moshe Levinger and his followers settled in the city’s Park Hotel. Shai also interviewed Muhammad Ali Ja’abari, the Hebron mayor who told him Jews would never leave the biblical city.
It turned out to be a prophetic statement.
When Levinger died at age 80 in 2015, it was in Hebron that he had been living. “Hebron was open and inexpensive. Jews flocked there and to and Bethlehem,” Shai recounted.
Move to TV – and the US
In the 1970s, most radio reporters moved to ITV, but Shai preferred to stay in radio, where he received a promotion.
Two years later, he moved to ITV and was military correspondent for five years, including during the Yom Kippur War.
Reflecting back over more than half a century, Shai regarded the Yom Kippur War as an immersive experience in that it was Israel’s first trauma. Just as the army had been caught by surprise on Oct. 7, 2023, it had been caught off guard on Yom Kippur 1973.
The misconception on the part of the intelligence network resulted in a huge military failure. The comparison with what led to the current war is historically unavoidable.
“History repeated itself – failure, surprise, the intelligence and the army not prepared...” Shai said.
The only real difference, he added, is that “there are new players and a new situation.”
Even though he is politically Center-Left, Shai misses prime minister Menachem Begin. “Bibi and Begin are not members of the same party,” he declared.
Other current and former political figures have made similar remarks, not only about the two prime ministers but also their party itself. A common comment is that this is not the Likud of yesteryear.
In 2004, Shai – together with American businessman, philanthropist, and venture capitalist Joey Low, who invested in more than a dozen Israeli start-ups – ran the wonderful reality show Hashagrir (The Ambassador). In it, young people from Israel and abroad competed to be an unofficial Israel ambassador for a year, promoting Israel in different parts of the world, but mainly in the US.
Low funded a substantial part of the production costs; Shai was the chief adjudicator. The show was fast-paced, sophisticated, and took contestants to all kinds of fascinating places to test their general knowledge and ability to face and overcome unexpected challenges.
The raison d’etre behind the show was that one does not necessarily need diplomatic credentials to be an ambassador for a country or a cause. “Beauty queens are also ambassadors,” mused Shai.
Long before that, in 1979, at the request of the Foreign Ministry, he had served as press secretary to the Israel delegation to the UN in New York. After two years, he was appointed media consultant to the Israel Embassy in Washington.
Prior to leaving for New York, Shai had been the parliamentary reporter for ITV, which provided him with a lot of the know-how he needed to succeed at his job in the Big Apple.
His first trip to the US was some years earlier, when he was awarded a scholarship to study communications at the World Press Institute in Minnesota. During that time, he became a fan of American football and basketball, and his love of both sports has remained with him.
The ‘national tranquilizer’ returns
The Israeli ambassador to Washington during Shai’s time there was Moshe Arens, with whom he developed a close rapport. When Arens replaced Ariel Sharon as defense minister in 1983, he invited Shai to be his media adviser.
In 1984, when Yitzhak Rabin was appointed defense minister, he left all of Arens’s people at their posts, including Shai. This was unusual, considering that Arens and Rabin were from two vastly different and ideologies, but there was mutual respect.
It was Ehud Barak, who as chief of general staff appointed Shai as IDF spokesman at the beginning of the First Intifada, continuing in that role during the Gulf War. The interceptors and early-warning systems which are now in place did not exist during the war years of 1990-1991, but he knew he had to inspire confidence in the public because there was fear that Israel would be attacked with chemical weapons.
Gas masks were distributed throughout the population, and violin virtuoso Isaac Stern, who was a great friend of Israel’s, came especially from the US to give a concert recital in the Jerusalem Theatre. Many in the audience came bearing their gas masks, though Stern declined to wear one.
Whenever Shai appeared on TV during the Gulf War, he appeared alone to enforce the impression that the army was on top of the situation. He also made a point of broadcasting fresh information to build up public trust.
The public was very fearful. For five weeks, 17 hours a day, said Shai, there were Scuds fired into Israel each day.
After the war, he’d had enough of the military and was looking for new challenges.
Changing the communications landscape
The challenges came by way of the introduction of commercial radio and television, which demanded a second broadcasting authority.
In 1991, Shai was appointed the first CEO of the Second Authority, while the second channel was not yet operating, though it did have trial broadcasts.
“We changed the landscape of Israeli communications,” he said. “We broke the monopoly and became pluralistic. It impacted every aspect of life in Israel.”
Asked what he thought about the stated intention of current Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi to close down KAN 11, Shai exclaimed: “Karhi, he’s crazy! He’s not a communications minister, he’s a regulator. He should not express his opinion of the content.”
“Media should not serve the government, it should serve the public,” stressed Shai. “By establishing more radio and television stations, we strengthen democracy.”
Shai’s next career move was as director-general of the Culture and Sports Ministry, after which he was asked to be the chairman of the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA), which was a real feather in his cap. He’d started out as a rookie reporter on a radio station under the IBA umbrella, and now he was back in its top job.
He stayed there for two years and then moved on to become the Israeli representative of the United Jewish Communities of America – a post that he held for eight years, and in which he was instrumental in strengthening relations between Israel and American Jewry.
Foray into politics... as Jerusalem mayor?
In 1993, Shai was urged to run for mayor of Jerusalem, or rather as a running mate to the incumbent mayor.
Legendary mayor Teddy Kollek was old and tired, and no longer had the spunk that had driven him in previous years. But Shai was young and energetic, plus a well-known personality. Initially, he agreed.
But when he thought about it, he realized that Kollek wanted him only as window dressing, and once he won the election would have no further use for him, so he backed off. The end result was that Kollek was defeated by Ehud Olmert.
It was also in 1993 that the first commercial television channel began broadcasting, then known as Channel 2, and Shai had a new challenge in a field with which he was very familiar.
Just as Shai had diverse career options, he also had diverse political options.
Ahead of the 2009 Knesset elections, he joined Kadima, which was then led by Tzipi Livni – whom he considers one of the most honest of politicians.
His opinion of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is somewhat different. “Bibi has endless energy,” he said. “With all his problems, he does what he wants and keeps his majority.”
It was on a Kadima ticket that Shai entered the Knesset, where he spent 10 years as an MK. The second time around, he was with the Labor Party, the third time with the Zionist Union which was an amalgamation of Kadima and Labor, and the fourth with Labor, with a break between his third and fourth stints.
In the 2021 elections, Shai placed eighth on the party list. Labor only won seven seats.
Shai retired from politics and headed for Atlanta to teach at Emory University. It was something he hadn’t done before.
He loved the university atmosphere and the interaction with the students. He was equally charmed by Duke University, where he was teaching public diplomacy and was asked to stay an extra year.
But that was not in the cards: At the same time, he received a call from then-Labor leader Merav Michaeli, who asked him to run in the forthcoming elections and to send NIS 5,000 to register for the primaries. The upshot was that within a few days, he was in sixth place on the Labor list – but then moved to eighth because Michaeli insisted on gender equality.
Shai was on the way to the airport to return to Israel when he received another call from Michaeli, telling him he was Diaspora affairs minister. He remembers this Government of Change fondly as “the most unique and diverse government in Israel’s history and the first to include an Arab party,” though there had been an Arab minister in a previous government.
Shai never imagined he and Meretz MK Tamar Zandberg, who was environment minister in that government, would ever sit together in a government with Gideon Sa’ar – a staunch right-wing politician who is currently foreign minister, after publicly declaring he would never again serve under Netanyahu.
“We proved that in Israel, people of different ideologies can come together for the common good.”
As for the present government, in Shai’s view, “This government does not respect democracy.”
He also pointed out the difference between Yitzhak Rabin and Netanyahu when it comes to accepting responsibility.
When Rabin’s wife, Leah, maintained a bank account in the US – which was illegal in those years – then-prime minister Rabin resigned as soon as the existence of the account was revealed by Haaretz journalist Dan Margalit (who happened to be at the bank and witnessed Leah Rabin making a transaction). It is hard to imagine a politician today taking such a principled stance.
Shai noted how the grounds for which Netanyahu is standing trial, along with those for which a state commission of inquiry is being demanded, warrant his resignation, but he is standing his ground – regardless of the fact that he had called for Olmert’s resignation as premier.
New horizons
In his present role, Shai is trying to gain greater acceptance for the Reform stream in the Jewish state. “The Reform Movement needs more recognition in Israel,” he affirmed.
He is also trying to allay fears about the future.
He talks to his staff about the history of the state, and Jewish history in general, and lists the calamities that befell the Jewish people over thousands of years. He points out that if we were able to build up the Jewish people after so many devastating chapters in its saga, it can be done yet again, despite the disagreements and rifts. What is required is good leadership.
He is not opposed to change, as long as it is within the framework of democracy, which he said “is the best political system.”
He also believes that greater efforts must be made to bond Israeli and Diaspora Jewry.
The outpouring of donations from the Diaspora since Oct. 7 is indicative that regardless of what separates us, we are one people, one family who rely on one another.
“We should help the Diaspora, not only get from the Diaspora,” Shai insisted. “Jewish philanthropy is so big that we must give back.”