Nachman Shai

Nachman Shai is an Israeli journalist, communications scholar, public servant and former politician whose career has spanned the institutions through which Israel speaks to its own citizens and to the wider world. He is best remembered as the IDF spokesman during the 1991 Gulf War, when his calm televised briefings helped Israelis endure Iraqi missile attacks and long periods in sealed rooms. His wider contribution, however, reaches far beyond that defining emergency. Shai helped build Israel’s commercial broadcasting system, led major public media bodies, represented the country in international forums, strengthened ties with Diaspora communities and brought decades of practical experience into the academic study of public diplomacy, security and the media.

From Jerusalem to broadcast journalism

Shai was born Nakhman Shaykevich in Jerusalem on November 28, 1946. His mother, Hava, née Zichlinsky, had immigrated to Mandatory Palestine from Poland, and his father, Eliezer, came from Russia. He attended the Hebrew Gymnasium Rehavia, one of Jerusalem’s historic Hebrew educational institutions.

His communications career began after he entered the Israel Defense Forces in 1964 and joined the editorial staff of Bamahane Nahal, a military publication. He subsequently worked for Kol Yisrael, Israel’s national radio service, reporting on Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the police. From 1972 to 1977 he covered military and security affairs for Israeli television. After a year of journalism study in the United States, he returned as Israeli television’s Knesset correspondent.

These assignments placed Shai at the intersection of three institutions that would shape his professional life: the press, the defense establishment and elected government. He learned not only how to report events, but also how military and political decisions are translated into information that citizens and international audiences can understand.

Diplomacy, defense and the voice of the Gulf War

In 1979 Shai was seconded to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and became press secretary of Israel’s delegation to the United Nations in New York. From 1981 to 1983 he served as communications adviser at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. Both posts required him to explain Israeli policy to foreign journalists, public institutions and audiences whose perspectives differed from those of the domestic Israeli public.

He later served as communications adviser to defense ministers Moshe Arens and Yitzhak Rabin. In 1985 he was appointed commander and editor-in-chief of Galei Tzahal, Israel Army Radio. The station occupies an unusual place in Israeli life: although operated by the military, it has long been a national source of news, current affairs and culture, as well as a training ground for generations of journalists and broadcasters.

In September 1989 Shai became the IDF spokesman, with the representative rank of brigadier general, and served until 1991. His most consequential public test came during the Gulf War. As Iraqi missiles struck Israeli cities, civilians were instructed to enter sealed rooms and prepare protective masks because of fears that the missiles might carry chemical warheads. Shai appeared repeatedly on radio and television to deliver instructions, clarify what was known and respond to widespread anxiety.

Israelis came to call him “the national soother.” The phrase captured a practical public achievement rather than simply a media image: his measured delivery helped reduce panic and made complex emergency orders easier to follow. His remembered advice to worried citizens to drink water became part of Israel’s collective memory of the war. The experience demonstrated a principle that informed much of his later work — in a national emergency, clear and credible communication is not peripheral to crisis management; it is part of the country’s resilience. In 1991 he received a certificate of recognition associated with the Ziv Prize for his contribution to public morale.

Helping shape Israel’s broadcasting institutions

After leaving the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Shai moved from communicating events to helping manage the institutions through which Israelis received their news. He became the first director-general of the Second Authority for Television and Radio, the regulatory body created as Israel developed commercial broadcasting alongside its longstanding public system. This transition opened Israeli television and radio to greater competition and a wider range of voices.

Shai also chaired the board of the Channel 2 News Company, which became one of Israel’s principal television news organizations. In 1999 he was appointed director-general of the Ministry of Science, Culture and Sport. From 2000 to 2002 he chaired the Israel Broadcasting Authority, then responsible for major national radio and television services. These were not merely administrative posts: the institutions he led helped determine how Israelis encountered breaking news, political debate, culture and the Hebrew language in daily public life.

He later remained active as a commentator and media figure. In 2005 and 2006 he appeared as a judge on the television programs The Ambassador and The Ambassador — Five Continents, which focused on presenting Israel to international audiences. After his ministerial service, he returned to television panels and Hebrew-language opinion writing.

Connecting Israel and Diaspora Jewry

From 2002 to 2009 Shai served as director-general of the Israel office of United Jewish Communities, known as UJC and later reorganized as the Jewish Federations of North America. The federation system is one of the central organizational networks of North American Jewish life. It raises and distributes philanthropic funds, supports social services and Jewish education, assists Israel in emergencies, and connects local communities with one another and with the Jewish state.

Shai’s position placed him at a vital meeting point between Israeli institutions and a large, diverse Diaspora community. His background in communications and public administration helped him explain Israeli needs to Jewish leaders abroad while conveying the concerns and perspectives of North American Jews to Israeli decision-makers. That work anticipated a central theme of his later parliamentary and ministerial career: relations between Israel and Diaspora Jewry require sustained listening and institutional partnership, not only appeals for support during a crisis.

Scholarship, teaching and the study of public diplomacy

Alongside his public career, Shai pursued the systematic study of communications. He earned a bachelor’s degree in general history and political science and a master’s degree in mass communications from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2009 he completed a doctorate in communications and political science at Bar-Ilan University under Professor Eytan Gilboa. His dissertation examined public diplomacy and low-intensity conflict and received the Tshetshik Prize for Security Studies from Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies.

Shai taught journalism and communications at Tel Aviv University and the College of Management Academic Studies. In 2020–2021 he held visiting academic appointments in the United States through Israel studies programs, including at Emory University and Duke University. He also taught in the Ruderman Program for American Jewish Studies at the University of Haifa. In the classroom, he could connect academic concepts with firsthand experience as a reporter, military spokesman, media executive and public official.

Writing about media, security and public opinion

His best-known book, Milchamedia: Israel, the World and the Battle for Public Consciousness, was published in Hebrew in 2013. It examines the role of media during the Second Intifada and the relationship between events on the battlefield and the struggle over how those events are framed and understood. Shai explored how images, messages, the speed of the news cycle and international coverage can affect the ability of governments and organizations to achieve strategic goals. The book received the Yitzhak Sadeh Prize for Military Literature in 2013.

He also wrote An Arrow in the Network: Israel in the Struggle for World Public Opinion, published in the Broadcast University series, and contributed to other writing on Israel’s defense establishment. His books gave an analytical framework to lessons acquired in practice and helped bring the study of public diplomacy and security communications into a broader Israeli discussion.

A decade in the Knesset

Shai joined Kadima in 2008 and entered the 18th Knesset following the 2009 election. Before the 2013 election he moved to the Labor Party and won a seat in the 19th Knesset. He continued in the 20th Knesset as a member of the Zionist Union alliance, serving in parliament for approximately a decade. His assignments included membership on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and the Internal Affairs Committee. In May 2014 he was elected a deputy speaker of the Knesset.

His parliamentary work drew directly on his professional experience. He led caucuses concerned with public diplomacy, home-front security, Jerusalem, United States–Israel relations and ties with the Jewish people. He also headed Knesset delegations to the European Parliament and the Council of Europe and chaired the Israel–Germany Parliamentary Friendship Association. These roles sustained working relationships between Israeli legislators and their European counterparts. In 2017 Germany awarded him the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of his contribution to Israel–Germany relations.

Minister of Diaspora Affairs

On June 13, 2021, Shai was appointed Minister of Diaspora Affairs in Israel’s 36th government. He served until December 29, 2022. The ministry’s responsibilities placed him at the governmental center of relations with Jewish communities outside Israel, including questions of Jewish identity and education, antisemitism and the long-term connection between the Jewish state and Diaspora life.

Shortly after he took office, the collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, Florida, devastated families in an area with a large Jewish population. Shai traveled to Miami as a representative of the Israeli government to support the community and those affected. His presence expressed an understanding that Israel’s responsibility toward Jewish communities is not confined to the country’s borders, particularly when a community is confronting a disaster.

During his tenure he also engaged the Greek government after a legal ruling threatened the continuation of kosher slaughter. The issue concerned more than food production: it touched the religious freedom of Jewish communities and their ability to sustain Jewish life in Europe.

Continued educational and public leadership

In April 2024 Shai was appointed dean of the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion’s Taube Family Campus in Jerusalem. The institution trains rabbis, educators and other Jewish professionals while supporting academic and public engagement with Jewish life in Israel. The appointment brought together several strands of his career: institutional leadership, education, communications and decades of work with North American Jewry.

Shai has also served as chair of Israel’s Association of Civil-Military Studies and has participated in public organizations concerned with national security and relations between the military and society. He is married to Rivka, has three children and lives in Mevaseret Zion.

Why Nachman Shai belongs in Moreshet

Nachman Shai merits inclusion in Moreshet because his career illuminates several major developments in modern Israeli and Jewish life: the evolution from a limited state broadcasting system to a competitive media environment, the emergence of public diplomacy as a professional discipline and the growing institutional importance of Israel’s relationship with Diaspora Jewry. During the Gulf War he showed how disciplined, credible communication could strengthen an entire civilian population under threat. As a broadcasting executive, he helped lead institutions that shaped how Israelis received news and conducted their national conversation.

His work at UJC, in the Knesset and as Minister of Diaspora Affairs gave practical form to the mutual responsibilities connecting Israel with Jewish communities abroad. His teaching and books also provided tools for understanding the increasingly important relationship between media, national security and public opinion. Preserving his story on Moreshet.com therefore records more than the career of one public figure: it documents a chapter in the history of Israeli resilience, Hebrew-language broadcasting and the continuing relationship between the State of Israel and Jewish communities around the world.