Short answer: Yes. As of August 2026, Yossi Klein Halevi is a living American-Israeli author and journalist who made aliyah in 1982, served in IDF reserve duty, and has spent decades as a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem writing and speaking in defense of Israel's legitimacy and security. He is also a prominent advocate for Israeli-Palestinian dialogue and a two-state solution, and he has publicly rejected the "genocide" framing of Israel's Gaza war as a modern blood libel, even as he has pushed for Israeli moral self-examination during that war.
What Yossi Klein Halevi has actually said and done
1982: Klein Halevi immigrated from New York to Israel and later served IDF reserve duty during the First Intifada, including patrol duty in the Gaza Strip, according to his biography on Wikipedia.
2013: He co-founded the Shalom Hartman Institute's Muslim Leadership Initiative (MLI) with Imam Abdullah Antepli, a program that brings North American Muslim leaders to Israel to study Judaism, Jewish identity, and the country itself, per Wikipedia.
2018: He published "Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor," a New York Times bestseller that makes the case for Israel's legitimacy and the Jewish people's historical and religious ties to the land, while also arguing for a two-state solution and Palestinian self-determination, as documented on Wikipedia.
October 7, 2024: On the first anniversary of the October 7 attack, he published "The End of the Post-Holocaust Era" on his Times of Israel blog, writing that the attack shattered Israelis' faith in state protection and describing the erosion of what he called the "iron wall" of deterrence. He also warned against what he termed "political supersessionism," the denial of Jews' right to their own homeland.
September 7, 2025: He published "Our Season of Reckoning: Israel's Moral Crossroads in Gaza" on his Times of Israel blog, affirming that Israel's war against Hamas was justified while warning that a full invasion of Gaza City would be a moral and strategic disaster, and calling on Israelis to combine firm rejection of external accusations with honest internal moral accounting.
Reported February-March 2026: Klein Halevi was among a group of center-right Jewish intellectuals, alongside Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg and Rabbi Micha Odenheimer, who signed an open letter arguing that labeling Israel's Gaza campaign "genocide" constitutes a modern "blood libel" against Jews, calling on supporters to stop the spread of that claim. The letter was described in The Jerusalem Post and discussed further in Moment Magazine.
The fuller picture
Yossi Klein Halevi (born 1953 in New York) is a journalist, author, and senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, where he co-hosts the award-winning podcast "For Heaven's Sake" with Donniel Hartman. He made aliyah in 1982 and has lived in Israel ever since, including his period of IDF reserve service. His body of work, from "Like Dreamers" (2013, National Jewish Book Award) to "Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor" (2018, New York Times bestseller), consistently defends Israel's right to exist and its Jewish and historical claim to the land, while also engaging seriously with Palestinian perspectives and advocating a two-state resolution rather than a one-sided outcome.
Since October 7, 2023, he has written extensively about the trauma and strategic reckoning that attack forced on Israelis, describing a breach in the country's basic sense of security and the ending of what he calls a "post-Holocaust era." During the Gaza war he occupied a distinctive position: firmly rejecting "genocide" characterizations of Israel's conduct as a modern blood libel, while at the same time urging Israelis toward honest internal moral self-examination about civilian harm and the conduct of the war. That combination has drawn criticism from both pro-Israel hardliners and Israel's harsher critics, but it has remained consistent in his public writing. He also continues to co-direct the Hartman Institute's Muslim Leadership Initiative, which brings North American Muslim leaders to Israel to study Judaism and Jewish identity, a reflection of his long-standing investment in interfaith and cross-communal understanding rather than boycott or estrangement from Israel.
The bottom line
Yossi Klein Halevi is unambiguously pro-Israel. He made his home there in 1982, served in its military, and has spent his career writing and lecturing in Israel's defense, including rejecting the "genocide" label as a blood libel. He continues that work as of 2026 at the Shalom Hartman Institute. His support for a two-state solution and his calls for Israeli moral self-scrutiny during the Gaza war are best read as engaged, from-the-inside criticism aimed at strengthening Israel's moral standing, not opposition to the state.
Wear your own answer
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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
