Yechiel Leiter

Yechiel Leiter was born in 1959 in Scranton

Leiter was born in 1959 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and grew up in a religious Zionist home. He studied at a yeshiva in Queens, New York, and moved to Israel in 1978.

In Israel he studied at the hesder yeshiva in Kiryat Arba and received rabbinic ordination in 1984. He later earned degrees in law, political science and international relations, and a PhD in political philosophy from the University of Haifa on John Locke and the Hebrew Bible.

He was among the settlers in Hebron and chaired its Jewish community committee from 1989 to 1992. He advised Ariel Sharon, served as deputy director general of the Ministry of Education, and was chief of staff to Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from 2004 to 2005.

He joined the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in 2006 and directed it from 2015 to 2023. He ran in the 2008 Likud primaries, joined the board of Israel Ports in 2011, founded the consultancy Versta in 2015 and advised Paraguay's president Horacio Cartes.

In January 2025 he became ambassador to the United States, and he represents Israel in talks with Lebanon. He is married with 8 children, and his son Moshe Yedidia was killed in Gaza in 2023.