Yossi Klein Halevi to speak at Temple Sinai
Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and a widely respected authority on Israeli affairs, is coming to Pittsburgh for an appearance at Temple Sinai, Sunday, Nov. 24, at 7 p.m.
Rabbi James Gibson, who has a long association with the Shalom Hartman Center, was instrumental in bringing Halevi to Pittsburgh.
Halevi has been active in Middle East reconciliation work, and serves as chairman of Open House, an Arab-Jewish coexistence center in the town of Ramle, near Tel Aviv. He was one of the founders of the now-defunct Israeli-Palestinian Media Forum, which brought together Israeli and Palestinian journalists.
He also belongs to the institute’s iEngage Project, which responds to “growing feelings of disenchantment and disinterest toward Israel among an ever-increasing number of Jews worldwide by creating a new narrative regarding the significance of Israel for Jewish life,” according to its website.
Halevi also is a contributing editor of the New Republic and writes for the op-ed pages of leading American newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.
He was a senior fellow at the Shalem Hartman Center in Jerusalem from 2003 to 2009.
His new book, “Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation,” has just been published by Harper/Collins.
He is also author of the 2001 book, “At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew’s Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land.”
His first book, “Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist,” told the story of his teenage attraction to, and subsequent disillusionment with, Jewish militancy.
Born in New York, Halevi has a bachelor’s degree in Jewish studies from Brooklyn College and a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University.
He moved to Israel in 1982, and lives in Jerusalem with his wife, Sarah, a landscape designer, and their three children.
Read next week’s Chronicle for more information about Halevi’s visit.
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