Israel Charny

Israel Charny was born in 1931 in Philadelphia

Israel Charny was born in Philadelphia on 18 July 1931. His father, Baruch (Bernard) Charny, was an Orthodox rabbi, and as a youth he studied Torah and Talmud alongside high school. His older brother was the poet T. Carmi.

He earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Temple University in 1952 and a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Rochester in 1957. From 1958 to 1973 he ran a group psychology practice in the Philadelphia area. He also taught psychology at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.

After moving to Israel, he became a professor of psychology and family therapy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1977 he helped found the Israel Association of Family Therapy and was its first chair. In 1984 he opened the first academic family therapy program in Israel.

In 1979 he co-founded the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem with Elie Wiesel and others. In 1982 he helped plan an international conference on the Holocaust and genocide in Tel Aviv, which took place despite Turkish pressure over its discussion of the Armenian genocide. He co-founded the International Association of Genocide Scholars in 1994 and edited the Encyclopedia of Genocide, published in 1999.

He spoke against denial of the Armenian genocide and compared it to Holocaust denial. He criticized Israel for not recognizing the Armenian genocide, while rejecting claims that Israel commits genocide against Palestinians. He died in Jerusalem on 14 December 2024.