Activists involved in Palestinian-Israeli reconciliation launched a campaign to press the U.S. Jewish leadership to back peace talks.
“The Time Is Now” was launched last week by Bruce Wexler, a Yale University professor of psychiatry who earlier this year published an exhaustive examination of Israeli and Palestinian textbooks and whether they were educating for peace.
“We are asking all American Jews to write our Jewish leaders and ask that they express their full support for the negotiations and refrain from negative comments during this process,” the website says.
It draws its name from Psalm 102:14, “Ki Va Mo’ed,” and also from calls from the Obama administration for grassroots Jewish pressure on U.S. Jewish leaders to support the renewed peace talks.
Tovah Feldshuh, a Broadway actress who has been involved a number of Jewish peace groups, appears on the group’s website singing the psalm.
Also backing the initiative is Parents Circle, a group that brings together the parents of Palestinian and Israeli youths killed in the conflict. — jta