Lesley Hazleton (born 1945) is a British-American writer whose work mainly focuses on the intersection of politics, religion, and history in the Middle East. She reported from Israel for Time, and has written on the Middle East for numerous publications including The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Harper's, The Nation, and The New Republic."About Lesley Hazleton." Lesley Hazleton. 2004. .
Hazleton was born in England, and became a United States citizen in 1994. She was based in Jerusalem from 1966 to 1979 and in New York City from 1979 to 1992, when she moved to her current home in Seattle WA, originally to get her pilot's license. She has two degrees in psychology (B.A. Manchester University, M.A. Hebrew University of Jerusalem)."About the author." Lesley Hazleton. 2009.
She has described herself as "a Jew who once seriously considered becoming a rabbi, a former convent schoolgirl who daydreamed about being a nun, an agnostic with a deep sense of religious mystery though no affinity for organized religion". "Everything is paradox," she has said. "The danger is one-dimensional thinking".
On Middle East culture, history, politics, and religion:
After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split, Doubleday, 2009
Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible's Harlot Queen, Doubleday, 2007
Mary: A Flesh-and-Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother, Bloomsbury, 2004
Jerusalem, Jerusalem: A Memoir of War and Peace, Passion and Politics, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986
Where Mountains Roar: a Personal Report from the Sinai, Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1980
Israeli Women: The Reality Behind the Myths, Simon and Schuster, 1979
Her other books include England, Bloody England (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1988), Confessions of a Fast Woman (Addison-Wesley, 1992), and Driving to Detroit (Free Press, 1998).