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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