J. The Jewish News of Northern California has hired a new editor in chief: award-winning journalist Asaf Elia-Shalev.
Elia-Shalev, an Israeli American, comes to J. after five years at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency wire service, where he worked from Los Angeles as an investigative reporter. Before that, he reported for Calcalist and Haaretz. He also wrote the 2024 book “Israel’s Black Panthers: The Radicals Who Punctured a Nation’s Founding Myth.”
He will move to the Bay Area this summer, along with his wife and two young children. It will be a homecoming for the UC Berkeley grad, who looks forward to returning to the East Bay.
“I’ve lived in many, many places and traveled around the world. There are only two places where I felt something spiritual, something deep, some sense of belonging that I can’t explain. The two places are Jerusalem and Berkeley, and I still get those feelings every time I return to visit,” he said.
Elia-Shalev, 38, began his role at the start of May, taking over from interim editor Sue Barnett as she retired. He is primarily working for now from Los Angeles while he searches for housing in the Bay Area. He was born in L.A. before moving to Israel with his family at age 8. They returned to L.A. when he was 14.
At JTA, Elia-Shalev said, he faced a learning curve in understanding the American Jewish community.
“I grew up in an Israeli family in Los Angeles that was very secular. I had been to synagogue maybe four or five times in my life until I was into my 30s,” he said. “I came to JTA with this really strong appreciation for the history of American Jews, but I had little knowledge about what Jews are doing today in America. I had to learn that through reporting. The cool thing to me about journalism has always been that it’s a sort of license to ask anyone almost anything, and so that was my approach.”
Elia-Shalev said he believes his status as something of an outsider to American Jewry will serve him well in his new role.
“As an Israeli, as a Mizrahi Jew, I’m a small minority in the United States, and I bring these different perspectives,” he said. “I think it can help me make sure that J. is reflecting the entirety of the Jewish community and its coverage in the Bay Area.”
He has won multiple Simon Rockower Awards from the American Jewish Press Association and California Journalism Awards from the California News Publishers Association, as well as the 2025 Excellence in Nonfiction Religion Books Award from the Religion News Association.
Elia-Shalev was an admirer of J. before he knew about the job opening.
“It was always clear to everyone at JTA that J. has the best local Jewish news coverage,” he said.
J. editor emerita Sue Fishkoff takes credit for the match. “I’ve known and admired Asaf’s reporting for years and suggested he apply for the editor in chief job,” she said.
When he heard about the position, Elia-Shalev said, he realized it “could be an amazing opportunity and a really kind of logical next step” in his career.
“The more I learned about J., the more I was just impressed with the group of people that make it happen with dedication to the community and to serving readers with the highest quality journalism they can execute,” he said.
Fishkoff said she can already see that the decision to hire him is paying off.
“He has brought new energy and new ideas to the newsroom and is passing on his knowledge and experience to the younger reporters,” she said.
When he’s not running the J. newsroom, “I’m mostly a father to two young children,” Elia-Shalev said. “They definitely take up most of my time, which is a blessing.” He and his wife, who is from Israel, are raising their children in a Hebrew-speaking home.
Elia-Shalev also enjoys rock climbing indoors, which he describes as a “sanctuary” where he can “disconnect and do something that is both very social and physical.”
J. CEO Jo Ellen Green Kaiser is thrilled with the hire.
“We’re incredibly fortunate to hire Asaf, a journalist who has worked deeply in the Jewish community and who really understands investigative and data-driven journalism,” she said. “J. has a dual role as a Jewish community organization and a journalism-first news organization. We want to be able to do internationally recognized Jewish journalism, which is a goal Asaf can help us reach.”