Jeff Halper

Jeff Halper was born in 1946 in Hibbing

Halper was born in 1946 and grew up in Hibbing, Minnesota. He earned a B.A. from Macalester College and a Ph.D. in cultural and applied anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In the 1960s he took part in the civil rights movement and the protest against the Vietnam War, and he resisted military service in that war.

He moved to Israel in 1973 and settled in Jerusalem, living in the Nachlaot neighborhood while researching ethnicity and education. He taught anthropology as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Haifa and Ben Gurion University. Most of his academic career was at Friends World College, where he directed its Middle East Center in Jerusalem and later its international academic operations, becoming an associate professor.

He volunteered for 10 years in Jerusalem inner city neighborhoods and founded Ohel, a protest movement of working-class Mizrahi Jews. He also chaired the Israeli Association for Ethiopian Jews.

In 1997 he co-founded the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, which opposes the demolition of Palestinian homes and rebuilds demolished ones. He was nominated for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize together with Ghassan Andoni. He has been arrested at protests against demolitions, and he supports the BDS movement and co-founded the One Democratic State Campaign.