A number of rabbis have joined Christian and Muslim clerics in signing a plea for direct U.S.-Iran talks.
“Now that we know that Iran is not making nuclear weapons, the God of peace and justice calls on Americans to choose a full peace with each other, not dither any longer between peace and war,” says the advertisement appearing in newspapers in early election states.
The ad, which appeared this week in the Des Moines Register, refers to an assessment published earlier this month by the U.S. intelligence community that Iran ended a weapons program in 2003 but continues to enrich uranium, with the likelihood of reviving the program.
Of the 60 signatories, about half are Jewish, including rabbis from the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist streams. Signatories include Rabbi Elliott Dorff, the rector of the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, and Rabbi Arthur Waskow, who heads the Shalom Center in Philadelphia.
The Interfaith Peace Committee, which is behind the ad, plans to place it in New Hampshire papers and eventually in the New York Times.
