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Yossi Klein Halevi

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Yossi Klein Halevi
Born1953 (age 70–71)
New York City, United States
CitizenshipUnited States, Israel
EducationBrooklyn College(BA)
Northwestern University(MA)
Occupation(s)non-fiction writer, journalist
Notable workMemoirs of a Jewish Extremist(1995)
At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden(2001)
Like Dreamers(2013)
Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor(2018)
Websitewww.yossikleinhalevi.com

Yossi Klein Halevi(Hebrew:יוסי קליין הלוי,born 1953)[1]is an American-born Israeliauthorandjournalist.[2]

Biography[edit]

Yossi Klein Halevi was born and raised inBorough Park, Brooklyn,New Yorkin aJewishfamily. His parents, Zoltan and Breindy Klein, wereHungarian Jewishimmigrants to the United States; his mother had immigrated to the United States beforeWorld War IIand his father was aHolocaust survivor.[3][4]After attending high school atYeshiva University High School for Boys(Brooklyn Branch), he earned aBAinJewish StudiesfromBrooklyn Collegein 1978, and completed hisMAin Journalism atNorthwestern University.In 1982, Haleviimmigratedto Israel.[5]He moved to Israel together with his non-Jewish girlfriend, Lynn Rintoul, who subsequentlyconverted to Judaismand took the name Sarah.[6]They have three children.[7]During theFirst Intifada,he served as a reservist soldier in anIsrael Defense Forcesunit patrolling theGaza Strip.[8]

Journalistic and literary career[edit]

Halevi worked as a senior writer for the bi-weekly magazineThe Jerusalem Reportfrom its founding in 1990 until 2002. Halevi wrote a column forThe Jerusalem Post,and has written op-eds on Israeli issues forThe Wall Street Journal,The New York Times,and theLos Angeles Times.

Halevi's first book,Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist,was published in 1995. In it, he tells of his youthful attraction to, and subsequent break with, the militant RabbiMeir Kahane.

In 2001 he publishedAt the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land.The book tells of his spiritual journey as a religious Jew into the worlds of Christianity and Islam in Israel. Halevi joined the prayers and meditations in mosques andmonasteries,in an attempt to experience the devotional lives of his non-Jewish neighbors and to create a religious language of reconciliation among the threemonotheisticfaiths.

Halevi's non-fiction bookLike Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided A Nationwas released byHarperCollinsin October 2013 to positive reviews. The book recounts Israel's55th Paratroopers Brigadecapture ofOld CityJerusalemin the 1967Six-Day Warand the subsequent lives of seven of these soldiers who played key roles in influencing the politics of modern Israel, from the peace to the settlement movements.[9]The seven featured characters are fourKibbutzniksand threeReligious Zionists.They are:Arik Achmon,Udi Adiv,Meir Ariel,Avital Geva,Yoel Bin-Nun,Yisrael HarelandHanan Porat.InThe Wall Street Journal,Elliott Abramspraised the book as "a real-life version ofLeon Uris'sExodus,"the 1958 historical novel.[10]Like Dreamerswon the Book of the Year award in the 2013National Jewish Book Awards.[11][12]

On May 15, 2018,Harperpublished Halevi's bookLetters to My Palestinian Neighbor.[13]In the book, Halevi "open[s] a dialogue with an imagined Palestinian neighbor... He frames his chapters as a series of letters to that neighbor that include both concise, balanced histories—of such topics as the history of modern Zionism and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza—and his own memories of growing up an American Jew afraid that Israel would be destroyed in 1967, moving to Israel, and how his 'romance with the settlement movement ended.'"[14]Halevi says he is seeking "to start the first public conversation between an Israeli writer and our neighbors about who we are, why we see ourselves as indigenous to this land, and what is our shared future in the region." He is makingLetters to My Palestinian Neighboravailable for free download in Arabic and he has invited Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims to write to him in response to the book in order to initiate a dialogue. He "may publish the exchanges as a sequel."[15][16][17]

Halevi is a senior fellow at theShalom Hartman Institute,a Jerusalem-based research institute and educational center. He is a former contributing editor ofThe New Republic.Halevi was a senior fellow at theShalem Centerin Jerusalem from 2003–2009 and he served as a visiting professor of Israel Studies at theJewish Theological Seminaryin New York in the fall of 2013.[18]

Political activism[edit]

Halevi has been active in Middle East reconciliation efforts, and serves as chairman of Open House, an Arab-Jewish educational project in the working class town ofRamle.He was a founder and board member of the now-defunct Israeli-Palestinian Media Forum, which brought together Israeli and Palestinian journalists.[18]Halevi supports thetwo-state solutionand has criticized theIsraeli settlermovement as antithetical to that goal.[19]

In the summer of 2013, Halevi and Imam Abdullah Antepli, the founding director ofDuke University's Center for Muslim Life, established the Shalom Hartman Institute'sMuslim Leadership Initiative(MLI), which brings North American Muslims to Israel to learn about Judaism, Zionism, and Israel.[20]

Film[edit]

Halevi was featured in the 1984 documentary filmKaddish,which focuses on his relationship with hisHolocaustsurvivor father.[21]

Published works[edit]

  • Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist,New York-Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1995.ISBN978-0-316-49860-9
  • At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land.New York: Morrow. 2001.ISBN9780688169084.Yossi Klein Halevi.;HarperCollins, 2002,ISBN978-0-06-050582-0
  • Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation,HarperCollins, 2013.
  • Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor.Harper. May 15, 2018.ISBN978-0-062-84491-0.

Bibliography[edit]

Soviet Jewry[edit]

Yossi Klein Halevi joinedStudent Struggle for Soviet Jewry(SSSJ) at the age of 12, led student delegations to confront Jewish establishment organizations in New York and eventually the Ovir (Soviet migrations office) in Moscow. Since the latter 1960s he has written extensively on SSSJ. Two notable pieces are "Jacob Birnbaum and the Struggle for Soviet Jewry," a survey in the journalAzureof Spring 2004[22]and "Glory" inThe New Republicof December 2, 2010, now available as "Lessons of Struggle for Soviet Jewry Remain Relevant."[23]

In his autobiography of his early years,Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist: an American Story(Little, Brown, 1995) he describes his relationship with SSSJ and theJDL(Jewish Defense League).

Community[edit]

  • Wrote about murder[24]of Richard Kupferstein, a 19 year old former student ofYeshivas Etz Chaimin Boro Park, who was working evenings in a 16th Avenue Pharmacy.

References[edit]

  1. ^"Yossi Klein Halevi: I Am Looking for the Vanished Israel".Haaretz.October 20, 2013.
  2. ^"Yossi Klein Halevi".Shalom Hartman Institute.July 23, 2023.
  3. ^Yudelson, Larry."Writing the Jewish story in Jerusalem".jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com.
  4. ^"Interview: Yossi Klein Halevi".Jewish Book Council. January 13, 2015.
  5. ^"The War that Changed Everything—for Israel, for Me".Hadassah.May 2017.
  6. ^"Yossi Klein Halevi: I Am Looking for the Vanished Israel"– via Haaretz.
  7. ^"Yossi Klein Halevi".
  8. ^Halevi, Yossi Klein (February 8, 2009)."Opinion | No choice but to fight"– via NYTimes.com.
  9. ^"Forged in Battle: 'Like Dreamers,' by Yossi Klein Halevi".The New York Times.October 18, 2013.
  10. ^"Book Review: 'Like Dreamers,' by Yossi Klein Halevi".The Wall Street Journal.September 27, 2013.
  11. ^"Yossi Klein Halevi wins National Jewish Book Award".The Times of Israel.January 15, 2014.
  12. ^"Past Winners".Jewish Book Council.RetrievedJanuary 20,2020.
  13. ^"Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor".HarperCollins.
  14. ^"Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor by Yossi Klein Halevi".Publishers Weekly.March 26, 2018.
  15. ^"Who we are, why we're here: Israeli author explains Zionism to the Palestinians".The Times of Israel.May 3, 2018.
  16. ^"رسائل إلى جاري الفلسطيني"[Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor].The Times of Israel(in Arabic). February 12, 2018.
  17. ^"Return to Sender".Tablet.May 4, 2018.
  18. ^ab"Biography".YossiKleinHalevi.com.
  19. ^Halevi, Yossi Klein.Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor.New York: Harper, 2018.
  20. ^"The partnership: How a bold American imam and his skeptical Israeli host bridged the Muslim-Jewish chasm".The Times of Israel.September 8, 2015.
  21. ^"The Legacy of A Survivor".The New York Times.April 3, 1984.
  22. ^"NCSJ - Birnbaum and the Struggle for Soviet Jewry".Archived fromthe originalon June 18, 2011.RetrievedJuly 6,2020.
  23. ^Lessons of Struggle for Soviet Jewry Remain Relevant - (16/11/2010)ArchivedNovember 23, 2010, at theWayback Machine
  24. ^"1200 attend funeral of clerk slain in holdup".The New York Times.January 24, 1973.

External links[edit]

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