Asaf Elia-Shalev

Asaf Elia-Shalev is an investigative reporter and staff writer with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Based in Los Angeles, California, Elia-Shalev currenlty specializes in narrative stories of Jewish interest. His award-winning journalism has appeared in multiple languages and in dozens of publications, including the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Haaretz, and the Forward. He has covered news events in Israel and the wider Middle East and spent a while reporting on climate change in the Arctic while based in Anchorage Alaska.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of California Berkeley (2010) and a master’s degree in investigative journalism as a Toni Stabile Fellow at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (2015). He was also a journalist-in-residence at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (2017).

He is the author of “Israel’s Black Panthers: The Radicals Who Punctured a Nation's Founding Myth” published by University of California Press in March 2024. Peer-reviewed and written in narrative nonfiction style, Israel’s Black Panthers is the only book-length inquiry into a critical juncture in the country's history.