Iran Initiative

In May 2008, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb became the first woman rabbi to visit Iran. She was one the two leaders of the 7th Civilian Diplomacy delegation of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

The following is a poem written by Rabbi Lynn. In addition to being one of the first ten women rabbis in Judaism and a leader in the Jewish Renewal movement, she is the co-founder of both the Shomer Shalom Institute for Jewish Nonviolence as well as the Muslim-Jewish Peace Walk for Interfaith Solidarity.

The Fellowship of Reconciliation is cosponsor of the Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran. Together with dozens of other organizations, we are asking our members to call their representatives in the U.S. Congress to de-escalate the tensions that have been building between our two governments, and to pursue diplomacy with one another.

As we seek to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must also double our peacemaking efforts to ensure that the next war does not begin in the coming months. Please take this one simple action (or three simple actions, depending on how many of your legislators you call!) for a peaceful world today.

Did you know:

In an interview with ABC during his recent 10-day visit to the region, Vice President Cheney downplayed the NIE: "We don't know whether or not they've [the Iranians have] restarted." Cheney also said Iran was seeking to build missiles capable of reaching the United States sometime in the next decade.

If this is the truth, how come we in the United States with more advance military equipment couldn’t do that so far. If we, the leader and most technologic country in the word could do that, just imagine, we didn’t have to send our boys and girls to Iraq to kill Iraqis and get killed by them. Rather we could use our missiles and kill Iraqis without losing our own kids.

"Triumph of Triumph" is knowledgeable observation written by Hamid Dabashi, Professor of History at Columbia University. You can download this file here.

I would also recommend reading Mark Johnson's review of Dabashi's latest book Iran: A People Interrupted, published in the Spring 2008 issue of Fellowship magazine (pages 40-41, review not available online).

Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran

Tell Congress You Want Direct Dialogue, Not War with Iran

National call day

The same people who called for attacking Iraq now are raising the drumbeat for military action against Iran. Despite the November 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program, the Bush administration is bolstering its case for war by labeling Iran one of the greatest threats to American security.

History was made yesterday. And I was there to witness it. My colleague, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, was invited to stand before the congregation of an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Tehran, Iran. And as I should have realized she would, Lynn claimed the prophetic mantle.

It is 5 p.m. in Iran, 8 and 1/2 hours east of New York, and I am sending a first brief report from our civilian diplomacy delegation. It has been an exhausting and invigorating two days, only a few hours of which have actually been spent here in the country.

Written May 1, 2008

U.S. Civilian Diplomacy Delegation Departs for Iran;
Woman Rabbi Makes Historic Visit for Peace
April 28, 2008 -- For Immediate Release

In the wake of comments on April 21st by U.S. presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, who responded to a question of a theoretical future attack by Iran on Israel by saying, “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran,” a 21-person interfaith peace delegation to Iran will depart New York on Tuesday, April 29, 2008. The two-week delegation is organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the oldest and largest interfaith peace organization in the United States, and is FOR’s seventh fact-finding and friendship delegation to Iran.