What is Azure?

Azure: Ideas for the Jewish Nation presents the best in Jewish thought from Israel and around the world. Azure is a quarterly journal published in English and Hebrew editions in Jerusalem by Shalem Press—the publishing division of the Shalem Center. Azure offers essays and criticism on Israeli and Jewish public policy, Jewish philosophy, cultural trends, religion in public life, Zionist history and much more. Since its founding in 1996, Azure has brought together a wide range of young and established writers united by a commitment to the richness of Jewish tradition and the centrality of a strong, free, and Jewish State of Israel.

Azure, or Techelet in Hebrew, represents the most exalted as­pi­rations of the Jewish nation. In antiquity, an azure dye was applied to one of the white threads in the Jewish fringed garment described in the books of Moses. According to tradition, the hue of this thread “is like the sea, and the sea is like the sky, and the sky resembles the Divine Throne”—serving to remind the Jews of all that is majestic and eternal, and of the obligation to represent these in the world. It was in this tradition that the Jewish national movement adopted the azure-and-white coloration of the Jewish flag, which later became the flag of the State of Israel. And it is in this tradition, too, that we labor herein to present ideas for the Jewish nation, and for the world.