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Ofer Shelah

Israeli journalist and politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ3663054 ↗
Source-derived summary

Ofer Shelah (Hebrew: עֹפֶר שֶׁלַח; born 9 February 1960) is an Israeli journalist and politician. He served as a member of the Knesset for Yesh Atid from 2013 until 2020.

Early life and military service

Shelah was born in Kiryat Bialik. He enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces in 1977 as a soldier in the Paratroopers Brigade, and in 1979 became an officer. He served as a platoon leader and as an executive officer in the paratroopers, and took part in various raids against PLO camps in Lebanon. After he was honourably discharged he fought as a platoon leader and as company commander in reserve Paratroopers Brigade in the 1982 Lebanon War and lost an eye in Lebanon in 1983. He later published a book about his experiences, Guf Sheni (Hebrew: Second Person; lit. second body).

Education

Shelah subsequently completed a BA in Economics and English Literature at Tel Aviv University and an MA in Literature and Creative Writing at New York University.

Career

He started working as a journalist for Maariv and then for Yedioth Ahronoth.

Editorial summary

“Ofer Shelah” enters the record as israeli journalist and politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ofer, Shelah and Israeli can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1960, 2013, 2020, 1977—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1960-02-09. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Ofer, Shelah and Israeli.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Ofer Shelah” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ofer, Shelah and Israeli provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3663054. VIAF identifies the subject as 10126775. The Library of Congress control number is n89121092. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1960, 2013, 2020 and 1977.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ofer Shelah”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ofer Shelah primary sources, Ofer Shelah archive and Ofer research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ofer Shelah”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ofer Shelah” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.