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FEB.
14, 2005
THE
MIDEAST
Truce reinvigorates American Jewish peace movement
STATE-BY-STATE
• Zionist
Organization of America: State
offices are listed and a few have links.
• See the left side of the Americans
for Peace Now home page for a list of several regional offices.
IN
THE NORTHEAST
• Rabbi Brian Walt is executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights - North
America, in West Tisbury, Mass., a branch of the Israeli organization of rabbis
committed to defending the human rights of everyone in Israel and in the territories
under Israeli control. Contact 508-696-1880.
• Visions of Peace with Justice
in Israel/Palestine, based in Brookline, Mass., is an association of Boston-area
Jews united by a commitment to Jewish values and the desire to see suffering
end on all sides. Contact Jan Hayden, 781-864-4008, jan@vopj.org.
• The Massachusetts Council of Churches' web site lists Jewish
organizations and contacts involved in Middle East peace work.
IN
THE EAST
• Historian and Middle East expert Mark Rosenblum directs the Michael
Harrington Center at City University of New York's Queens College. He teaches
"The Middle East and America: Clash of Civilizations or Meeting of the
Minds," in which Jewish and Muslim students learn the opposing group's
history in the Middle East conflict and must support the opposing viewpoint.
See a CBS
news video clip on the class at the Americans for Peace Now site. Rosenblum
is founder and policy director of Americans for Peace Now and speaks nationally
on related subjects. Contact 914-224-8064.
• Arthur Hertzberg has taught at Princeton, Rutgers, Columbia and Dartmouth.
Since 1991, he has been the Bronfman Visiting Professor of the Humanities at
New York University. He also has been president of the American Jewish Policy
Foundation and the American Jewish Congress and vice president of the World
Jewish Congress. Ask him about the history of the Israel peace movement in the
United States and about pressures or conflicts in the minds of American Jews
about supporting Israel. Contact 212-998-8176, ah3@nyu.edu.
• Ellen Lippmann is founder and rabbi of the Kolot Chayeinu congregation
in Brooklyn. The congregation identifies itself as one comprised of individuals
of varying sexual orientations, races, family arrangements, Jewish identities
and backgrounds sharing the search for meaningful expression of Judaism. Contact
718-390-7493.
• Rabbi Gerry Serotta was director of Hillel, the Jewish campus organization,
at George Washington University before becoming a rabbi at Temple Shalom, a
Reform congregation in Chevy Chase, Md. He chairs Rabbis for Human Rights -
North America. Contact 301-587-2273 ext. 105, gerry@templeshalom.net.
• Reconstructionist congregation Mishkan Shalom in the Manayunk-Roxborough
section of Philadelphia draws members from all over the area for its commitment
to social justice, to the survival of Israel and to the belief that Jews and
Palestinians need to recognize and support each other's right to national self-determination.
Contact Rabbi Brian Walt, 215-508-0226.
• Jerry Kutnick is associate professor of history and heads the Israel
studies program at Gratz College in Melrose Park, near Philadelphia. Kutnick
is an expert on the history of Zionism in America. Contact 215-635-7300.
• The Seeds
of Peace summer camp first convened in Otisfield, Maine, in 1993 to bring
Arab and Israeli teenagers together. Today, the camp empowers young leaders
from the Middle East and other regions of conflict with leadership skills directed
toward reconciliation and coexistence. Contact director Tim Wilson, 212-573-8040,
camp@seedsofpeace.org.
IN
THE SOUTHEAST
• John S. Friedman
is rabbi of the Judea Reform Congregation in Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C. He has
received awards for his activism in peace and social justice causes. He has
been president of Durham Congregations in Action and the Mid-Atlantic Association
of Reform Rabbis and has chaired the Interreligious Affairs Committee of the
Central Conference of American Rabbis. Contact 919-489-7062, rabbijf@judeareform.org.
• In October, the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation
of Palm Beach, Fla., helped sponsor an appearance by the Bereaved Families Supporting
Peace, Recognition and Tolerance, an organization of Israeli and Palestinian
families who have lost members to the political violence and who work to promote
reconciliation. Judith A. Levy, president of the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach
County, can discuss how community members responded to the presentation. Contact
Levy, 561-478-0700.
• Liliane Kshensky Baxter is director of the Lillian and A.J. Weinberg
Center for Holocaust Education at the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum
in Atlanta. Baxter is a member of the executive committee of the national Jewish
Peace Fellowship, and she is national chairwoman of the Fellowship
of Reconciliation/USA. She was previously director of Nonviolence Training
and Studies at The King Center in Atlanta. Contact 404-870-1870, lbaxter@thebreman.org.
IN
THE SOUTH
• Togetherfor2states
is a group of nine Louisville residents, Palestinians and Jews, who have been
meeting since 2002 to talk about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The interest
in peace among American Jews never went away, maintains Jewish member Mark Isaacs.
He says he represents a center and moderate stream in American Jewry that has
always had an interest, as the Psalms say, in seeking peace and pursuing it.
Isaacs prefers to be contacted by email, Legacyhms@aol.com.
• Richard Friedman, executive vice president of the Birmingham, Ala., Jewish
Federation, can discuss whether the connection to Israel is in any way unique
for Jews in the Deep South. Contact 205-879-0416.
IN
THE MIDWEST
• Brenda Rosenberg, working with the Mosaic Youth Theatre in Detroit, staged
a theater production involving Jews, Palestinians and Christians called Children
of Abraham. It has been shown at Jewish-Palestinian peace events. Contact
248-594-1545, BrendaStyle@comcast.net.
• Ask Todd Endelman, director of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies
and the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University
of Michigan, about the history of the American-Jewish peace movement. Contact
734-647-7862, endelman@umich.edu.
• David Schoem is adjunct associate professor of sociology and teaches
sociology of the American Jewish community at the University of Michigan. Contact
734-647-4860 or 734-764-3528, dschoem@umich.edu.
Hands of Peace is
a summer program in Glenview, Ill., that brings youth from all sides of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict together with American kids from Christian, Islamic
and Jewish homes. The Middle Eastern teens receive year-round support to maintain
connections when they return home. A trio of congregations (Jewish, Muslim and
Christian) founded the camp, which is supported by private donations. Contact
Kathleen Mann at Glenview Community Church, 847-724-2210, Hands-Of-Peace@comcast.net.
• Rabbi Herbert Bronstein is senior scholar at North Shore Congregation
Israel, a metropolitan Chicago congregation where he was senior rabbi for some
25 years. He teaches at the religion department at Lake Forest College, is nationally
active in the interfaith community and serves on the board of the Council for
a Parliament of the World's Religions. Ask him particularly about the difficulties
that non-Jews have understanding Jewish fears of anti-Semitism and how those
fears shape American support for Israel. Contact 847-835-0724 ext. 656.
• Rabbi Arnold Wolf, founding editor of Shema, has taught at Hebrew Union
College-Jewish Institute of Religion, at Yale and at the University of Chicago
Divinity School. He was the acting rabbi at Yale University from 1972-80 and
now is rabbi emeritus at K.A.M. Isaiah Israel Congregation in Chicago. Ask him
about the peace movement and about the pressures on Jews to refrain from criticizing
Israel. Contact 773-924-1234.
IN
THE SOUTHWEST
• Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb and the Nahalat Shalom Jewish community are involved
in peace and reconciliation work in Albuquerque, N.M. Contact 505-343-8227,
RebLynn@swcp.com.
• Tucson's annual Muslim-Jewish Peace Walk will be Feb. 27, 2005. Read
an article
in the Tucson Weekly previewing last year's event. Dina Afek of (Reform)
Congregation Chaverim is the organizer from the Jewish community. Contact 520-320-1015.
IN
THE WEST/NORTHWEST
• Len
and Libby Traubman in San Mateo, Calif., began a living room dialogue involving
Palestinians, Christians and Jews that has lasted 13 years. Their Call
to Dialogue invites others to do the same and offers ideas on how to begin.
The Traubmans organized a Children
of Abraham dialogue weekend in Duluth, Minn., in fall 2004. Contact 650-574-8303,
LTRAUBMAN@igc.org.
• Rabbi James L. Mirel is president of the Washington Coalition of Rabbis.
He recently co-authored, with local Muslim and Christian leaders, a Seattle
Times
column urging moderate Jews, Christians and Muslims to persuade the American
government to engage actively in pursuing peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Mirel is president of the Washington Coalition of Rabbis. He is rabbi of Temple
B'nai Torah (Reform) in Bellevue, Wash. Contact 425-603-9677 ext. 214, rabbi@templebnaitorah.org.
• Rabbi Daniel Lapin, a Mercer Island, Wash., Orthodox rabbi, heads Toward
Tradition, a national coalition of Jews and Christians advocating practical
Torah solutions to modern American problems. Lapin is critical of many American
Jews' secular liberalism and sees religious Christians as among Israel's best
friends today. He is quoted often by evangelicals interested in Israel. Contact
206-236-3046.
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