Anti-war Jewish group launched

By · March 19, 2007

An anti-war Jewish group was launched on the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war. Jews Against War cited a recent Gallup Poll in its Monday release, which states that 77 percent of American Jews thought that going to war in Iraq was a mistake, compared to 52 percent of Americans overall. Jews Against War stated its goals as ending the war in Iraq and preventing one with Iran through the activism of rabbis, Jewish leaders and lay Jews in the United States. Its leading members include Aryeh Cohen, an associate professor of rabbinic literature at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, and Shaul Magid, an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University.

“We couldn’t continue to remain silent on one of the most catastrophic, immoral and tragic foreign policy decisions in the history of our country,” Cohen said in the press release. “The
Talmud teaches that silence is akin to assent.”