Y
ossi Klein Halevi is an
Israeli author, senior
fellow at the Shalom
Hartman Institute in Jerusalem
and co-director of the institute’
s
Muslim Leadership Initiative,
where he discusses the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict with young
Muslim Americans. He will speak
at Temple Beth El in Bloomfield
Township at 7:30 p.m. Monday,
March 16, about his spiritual jour-
ney into interfaith relations, espe-
cially Jewish-Muslim relations.
YOUR MOST RECENT BOOK,
LETTERS TO MY PALESTINIAN
NEIGHBOR, IS A NEW YORK TIMES
BESTSELLER. WHAT INSPIRED YOU
TO WRITE THIS BOOK? It’
s an out-
growth of several things. One is
the experience I have co-directing
MLI. MLI taught me a language
with which to speak about Israel
and Zionism to Muslim leaders.
Unfortunately, there are very few
people in the Jewish community
who have had the direct experi-
ence of engaging with the Muslim
community, specifically on Israel.
Usually, the way that interfaith
works is that American Jews and
American Muslims agree tacitly
or explicitly not to speak about
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
And in my experience, there’
s no
avoiding the conflict. If you do try
and avoid it, sooner or later it will
come back to haunt us.
And so, through MLI, I learned
a certain expertise from my
students — they became my
teachers. They taught me how
to approach the delicate subject
of Muslim-Jewish relations. I
developed a language for speak-
ing about Israel and Zionism to
Muslims, which I decided to apply
in this book and speak directly to
my Palestinian neighbors. And
the second inspiration for the
book was a journey that I took 20
22 | MARCH 12 • 2020
Jews in the D
Q&A with
Yossi Klein Halevi:
Israeli Interfaith Scholar
CORRIE COLF STAFF WRITER
RACHELGR713 VIA WIKIMEDIA.ORG
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