Its ethos is that of a traditional liberal arts college underpinned by millennia-old classical education.
But Shalem College is also an innately modern Israeli institution, unreservedly committed to the Jewish state.
In recent years, students who have been deployed by the IDF to the front lines in Gaza and Lebanon have stayed in touch with classes through especially created video uploads.
So devoted are they to the curriculum that on returning from the fighting, many choose to come straight back to Shalem before going back home.
Founded in 2013, Shalem describes itself as a project producing "in every generation, a core of leading Israeli citizens with an unyielding commitment to democracy, and an equally unshakeable belief in the historical imperative of a Jewish state.”
It remains deliberately small – with 75 students admitted each year, and tuition is free (the college relies on philanthropy) – because its founders believed that even a few hundred graduates with the intellectual foundation of Shalem will help shape Israeli society.
Spearheading the college and its ethos is Shalem’s president, Russ Roberts.
The American economist boasts a richly distinguished career.
Having earned his doctorate at the University of Chicago – the intellectual powerhouse of American free market economics – he went on to teach at Stanford and the University of California.
Somehow he has also found time to interview just about everyone who counts in his field on his podcast EconTalk, where the guests include more than a dozen Nobel prize winners.
But now his working life is entirely devoted to Shalem, after he moved with his wife to Jerusalem in 2021 to become the college’s third president.
The move fitted with his belief in “a life well lived”, Roberts, 71 told the JC on a recent visit to London.
Shalem College[Missing Credit]
As soon as he arrived at Shalem, the father of three and grandfather of two realised that many of the university's students were motivated by something quite different from the undergraduates he encountered in America.
“I was sitting on a bus next to one of our students who had served in Unit 8200,” Roberts recalled, referring to the elite Israeli military intelligence unit whose veterans are often recruited into high-paying technology careers.
“I asked her why she came to Shalem. Her parents wanted her to go somewhere where she could make money. She said: ‘I wanted to develop my heart, my soul and my brain.’
“The other response we get is: ‘I want to do something for the country.’ They feel Israel needs rebuilding.
“They aspire to do something important rather than simply something lucrative.”
Every student spends their first year studying the same core liberal arts programme before choosing one of three majors: Philosophy and Jewish Thought; Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies; or Strategy, Diplomacy, and Security.
Classes are limited to 25 students. Roberts describes seminar rooms: “Every student has the book open. They're reading it aloud, talking about it.”
All students read the Western cannon: Homer, Plato and Aristotle, as well as the Hebrew and Christian Bible and the Quran, alongside John Locke, David Hume, Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Dante.
They study Jewish and Western history, neuroscience, biology, Jewish law, Middle East studies, Arabic and a two-semester course on Zionism.
“Part of what we're teaching is your inheritance, as children of the West and as Jews,” Roberts said, although the college is open to students of all faiths.
“We use the metaphor of a nation's history as a novel. Many chapters have already been written.
“This generation will write the next one, but to do that you have to understand the chapters that came before.”
The sense of history ancient and modern has coalesced around the teaching of Homer since October 7.
Roberts, 71, said: “The Iliad in today's world for these students is such a human text because they realise, unfortunately, it has given them a language to think about what they just went through.
“Now they have mostly been in war,” he said, noting that around 60 per cent of Shalem's students serve as reservists in the Israel Defense Forces.
“And the people who haven't been in the war, the wives and mothers waiting for their husbands to come out, are reliving The Odyssey: Odysseus's struggles to return home, Penelope waiting for him, and his son Telemachus longing for his father.
“It is heavy and profound and beautiful, and an incredible privilege to be there and facilitate that.”
One of Shalem's students, Major Amir Skoury, was killed on October 7 while battling the Hamas invasion of Kibbutz Be'eri.
The 31-year-old was beginning his second year at the college and left behind a wife and two young daughters.
Shalem College student Major Amir Skoury was killed while battling Hamas on October 7[Missing Credit]
At his funeral, his teacher Ido Hevroni eulogised him as “open and curious”, at Shalem “to study for his soul”.
“He remains forever in the moment when all possibilities are open before him, yet none of them has been chosen,” Hevroni said.
Skoury would have graduated last month, and his family and the college have established a scholarship in his name which will be awarded to a student who “embodies the qualities that defined Amir: intellectual curiosity and growth, leadership, distinguished military service, and a deep commitment to both learning and the flourishing of the State of Israel”.
Before October 7, attracting applicants to the unique university was not easy – many of Israel's highest-achieving school-leavers were drawn to computer science, engineering and the country's thriving technology sector.
“Then the world changed,” Roberts said. “Israelis became much more idealistic.
“Young people increasingly wanted to ask what they could contribute to the country, and demand for Shalem grew.”
Although his academic activities are now large confined to administrative tasks, Roberts remains interested in the economics of “human flourishing - not just making money”.
That spirit of altruism and its expression of Jewish values is to be found across the student body.
Two students, both mothers, founded a non-profit supporting women whose husbands had been called up for reserve duty, helping secure government backing for a multibillion-shekel support package.
Another student launched an Arabic-language TikTok channel explaining Jewish life in Israel during the war to audiences across the Middle East, attracting millions of views.
Shalem goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure its undergraduates are dedicated to its values and respond to the intellectual challenge of its curriculum.
Shalem College[Missing Credit]
Applicants experience the demanding no-holds-barred exchanges of a fully committed seminar, along with an essay, aptitude test, and one-hour interview.
“We're not looking for someone who's already had an intellectual awakening,” Roberts explains.
"We're trying to discover whether there's someone exceptional who asks wonderful questions. That's more important than having all the right answers.”
The same principle guides staff recruitment, overseen by American physician, public intellectual and dean of faculty Leon Kass.
As Roberts explains it, Kass wants to fill the college with “serious people, not cynical or ironic people. He wants people who are trying to live well themselves, who see their mission as helping transform students.”
At Shalem, the commitment to debate is paramount. Its hallways are not intellectual “safe spaces”, but places were disagreements and discussions happen among people who hear diverse viewpoints around the same table.
That commitment to debate was tested during Israel's bitter judicial reform crisis, when students asked the college to pause classes so they could attend demonstrations.
"We said: ‘You're welcome to protest. Maybe you should. But that's your decision,’" Roberts recalled telling the student body.
“’Your education isn't a hobby. We believe it's part of leaving the country better than you found it.’"
The college itself remained deliberately nonpartisan – drafting a statement of neutrality – while encouraging students to debate vigorously with one another.
"One of my favourite moments was seeing 50 or 100 students sitting outside in a huge circle discussing the judicial reforms. Nobody was shouting," he said.
Roberts worries that too many universities have lost the ability to foster that kind of conversation.
Reflecting on the surge in antisemitism on American campuses since October 7, he said: “It's shocking for most of us; it's not what we grew up with, it's not what we expected.
"What disappoints me is the lack of discourse and conversation, the lack of imagining an alternative to one's own worldview or positions.
"I don't care that there are students at Columbia that think Israel has committed genocide but let's have a conversation about it.
"That this is happening in a place where the life of the mind is so essential is very discouraging for the West, civilisation and to me."
For students at Shalem, the life of the mind is everything – and Russell is reminded of the advice Leon Kass offers every incoming class.
"The world is waiting for you. Let it wait a little longer. This is your one chance in life to devote yourself to great ideas, great questions, and great books. Take advantage of it.”
To get more news, click here to sign up for our free daily newsletter.