Musicologist and cultural historian Assaf Shelleg specializes in twentieth- and twenty-first-century music, focusing on art music written by and about Jews. Prior to his appointment at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he taught at the University of Virginia and Washington University in St. Louis. Shelleg is the author of the award-winning book Jewish Contiguities and the Soundtrack of Israeli History (Oxford University Press, 2014), Theological Stains: Art Music and the Zionist Project (Oxford University Press, 2020) and, most recently, The State of Afterness: Contemporary Music in and about Israel (Oxford University Press, 2025). Previously the director of the Cherrick Center for the Study of Zionism, the Yishuv, and the State of Israel at the Hebrew University, he has also served as a curator for the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and as a music contributor for Haaretz. Shelleg’s new book, Jewish Art Music as Art Music, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in 2026.
Assaf Shelleg
Articles (selective list)
2026 “Trouble in Tahiti; Televised Temporalities,” The Opera Quarterly (2026) (forthcoming)
2025 “Scratching the Ideological Cage from Within,” Tempo 79: 8-26 https://doi.org/10.1017/S004029822510106X
2024 “Transcribing Disnarration,” The Opera Quarterly 39/1-2: 30-61 https://doi.org/10.1093/oq/kbae011
2024 “Rabbi Nachman’s Sonic Schemes,” Religions 15/4, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15040466
2024 “Jerusalem 1968; Meaningful Disharmonies,” in Jerusalem Transformed: Politics, Culture, and Hidden Corners (Studies in Contemporary Jewry XXXIV), ed. Richard I. Cohen, 105-118. New York: Oxford University Press.
2023 “Adamot—Art Music—Israel,” in The Oxford Handbook for Jewish Music Studies, ed. Tina Frühauf, 39-69. New York: Oxford University Press.
2023 “Composition in the Aftermath of Hebrew Culture: The Musics of Betty Olivero and Chaya Czernowin,” Israel Studies 28/1:200-214. https://doi.org/10.2979/israelstudies.28.1.12
2022 “The Music Histories signaled by (and in) Mordecai Seter’s Notebooks,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 22/2: 192-224 https://doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2022.2039040
Public Musicology (selective list)
2025 “Translating Tropes (and Psalmodies); New Sources on Steve Reich’s Ethnographic Imports,” Jewish Music Research Center, https://jewish-music.huji.ac.il/en/project/24962
2025 “Writtn and Unwritten Music (notes from Darmstadt 2025)” Haaretz (September 2, 2025) (Hebrew)
2025 “At Darmstadt’s Summer Courses, New Music Transitions in Real Time,” Partisan Notes (August 2025), https://partisan-notes.com/at-darmstadts-summer-courses-new-music-transitions-in-real-time
2025 “Into Coexistence,” in Darmstadt Sonicals I: Eclectic Guitar Diaries, https://internationales-musikinstitut.de/en/imd/publikationen/darmstat-dsonicals1/
2024 “Variants,” Safa hadasha (October 2024), https://www.safahadasha.co.il/וריאנטים-במקום-ייצוגים-אסף-שלג/
2024 “‘With a Name like Bardanashvili, it’s obvious where you came from’,” Haaretz (August 16, 2024) (Hebrew) https://www.haaretz.co.il/literature/tarbut-sifrot/2024-08-12/ty-article/.premium/00000191-4704-d46c-afb7-d75c453c0000
2023 “The Parachronies of Tzlil Meudcan 2023,” Partisan-Notes (July 2023); https://www.partisan-notes.com/post/tzlil-meudcan-2023
2023 “Eleven Tombstones and One More,” Haaretz (April 7, 2023) (Hebrew) https://www.haaretz.co.il/literature/tarbut-sifrot/2023-04-07/ty-article/.premium/00000187-5141-dcdb-a9af-d969d05d0000