Who We Are
Interfaith Peace-Builders was founded in 2001 and became an independent organization in 2006. Interfaith Peace-Builders is not affiliated with any government, political party, or special interest group. It is funded through individual donations and foundations.
Board of Directors
Ilise Cohen is originally from Atlanta, GA and now lives in San Francisco. She is a Sephardic Jew with roots from Turkey, Rhodes and Cuba. She has been a Middle East peace activist for 17 years and is working toward a PhD in Anthropology focused on issues of equity and justice in marginalized populations in Israel and Palestine. She lived and worked with Palestinians and Jews in Israel for two years, and has led previous Middle East delegations.
Mark C. Johnson, Ph.D., is the executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation/USA. Mark has spent most of his professional career in the YMCA and as a volunteer in environmental, arts, and peace and social justice organizations. Mark was president of the Lake George Land Conservancy for eight years and a trustee with the Adirondack Nature Conservancy and Adirondack Land Trust for nine years. He did his alternative service as a conscientious objector in Lebanon, living and teaching in Beirut for six years. From 2002-2007 he was active with the emergent Alliance for Middle East Peace and has supported the development of leadership and training programs for young adults at the Jerusalem International YMCA as a member of the staff of the YMCA of the USA.
Douglas Kerr is a professor of pediatrics at CWRU School of Medicine, specializing in endocrinology and inherited metabolic disorders. He was born in Beirut, Lebanon, where his parents were faculty members at the American University of Beirut. His brother, Malcolm Kerr was later president of AUB, until he was assassinated by terrorists in 1984 during the civil war. Doug’s interest in peace issues started during high school and college education at Quaker schools. More recently, he has been involved in Case for Peace, Cleveland Peace Action, and Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP).
Mary Ann Kerr is a clinical social worker who focused on parenting, family violence and health until her retirement in 2003. She and Doug have traveled to the Middle East several times, most recently in 2006 with a CMEP delegation, in 2007 with IFBP, and in 2008-2009 with their two adult children and their partners. The Kerr's could not resist sharing with their family the life changing experiences they encountered with IFBP. Mary Ann is active in the Northern Ohio Hemophilia Foundation, Churches for Middle East Peace, and is a Palestinian Fair Trade "ambassador", with Ruth Tracy, another IFBP traveler.
Scott Kennedy has served as Chair of the FOR Middle East Task Force and chair of the National Council of FOR. He is a co-founder and staff member of the Resource Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz, California. He has traveled to the Middle East more than 30 times and led delegations as early as the 1970’s and as recently as August 2008.
Mara Kronenfeld works in the External Affairs department at AMIDEAST. She has a M.A. in Middle East Studies from New York University. Mara has worked in the Office of Planning and Institutional Research at the American University in Cairo and as a teaching assistant with the National Endowment for the Humanities' Summer Institute on "Muslim Europe”. She was U.S. 2001-02 Fulbright grantee to Damascus, Syria where she studied the relationship between Jews, Christians and Muslims in 19th century Damascus. She remained in Damascus for an additional year serving as manager of the English Language Club with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
Gerald Lenoir is the director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) founded in the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area in 2006 to support fair and just immigration reform and to bring African Americans together with immigrant communities to fight for social and economic justice. He is also a board member of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. He is co-founder of the Priority Africa Network, which advocates for progressive U.S. policies toward Africa and organizes dialogues between African Americans and black immigrants. He is the former executive director of the Black Coalition on AIDS in San Francisco and co-founder/board chair of the HIV Education and Prevention Project of Alameda County in Oakland, Calif. He was a member of the editorial board of War Times, an anti-Iraq war newspaper and a long time leader in the racial justice and antiapartheid movements. He has also served as a strategic planning consultant for racial justice, immigrant rights, and health-related organizations.
Reem Marto is Outreach Manager for Soliya, a non-profit organization using new technologies to facilitate dialogue between students from diverse backgrounds across the globe. Born in Jordan, Reem grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and received her Master's degree at Princeton University's department of Near Eastern Studies. Reem has studied Arabic in Damascus, Turkish in Istanbul, and earned a one-year fellowship at the Center for Arabic Study Abroad at the American University in Cairo. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Middle East Studies and International Studies from Emory University.
Richard Moss has co-lead an ongoing Arab/Jewish Dialogue Group in Monterey for the last 5 years. He established and lead a grassroots organization for 6 years as they provided alternative information regarding the portrayal of the conflict in the Middle East. He is a Jewish-American who has traveled to Israel/Palestine three times over six years with IFPB. He served in the US Army from 1967 to 1969 as a medic with one year in Vietnam. He has worked as a registered nurse in critical care units. Also, for the last 13 years he has worked with the National Coalition Building Institute in local high schools to increase diversity awareness and understanding. This work has included training agency and community leaders. Currently he sits on the board of a nonprofit organization that provides violence reduction work in local middle schools. He holds a B.A. in Biology from the University of California.
Barbara Wien is the author of 15 articles and two books. She has helped to create 200 Peace Studies programs at colleges and universities around the world. She has taught alternatives to war and violence at Georgetown, Columbia and Catholic University. She led delegations of university presidents to El Salvador in the 1980s and traveled to Israel/Palestine with IFPB in 2002. Barbara served for five years as Director of Peace Brigades International (PBI), a highly-regarded human rights organization working in areas of conflict and repression to stop the killing of civilians. She has also worked as a trainer at the US Institute of Peace and with the playwright Eve Ensler to award over $7 million a year in royalties from her play, “The Vagina Monologues”, to end violence against women. Barbara also serves on the Board of Directors of the National Peace Action Education Fund.
Staff
Mike Daly is Program Coordinator at IFPB. He has worked with the organization since 2004. Before coming to IFPB, he studied in Damascus as a Fulbright Scholar, worked as a public relations consultant with the United Nations Development Programme in Ramallah, and completed a year of intensive Arabic at the American University in Cairo. Mike co-led three IPFB delegations, has presented at numerous conferences and workshops and taken on leadership roles in national, regional and local organizing initiatives and coalitions.
Joe Groves is Senior Fellow at IFPB. He has been working with IFPB since 2001, first as Coordinator for the program with FOR, then as Co-Director of IFPB in 2006-08. He has worked on Middle East issues for over 40 years, in the US, Israel and Palestine, and Iraq. He was Professor of Religious Studies and Director of Peace and Conflict Studies at Guilford College and is currently an Adjunct Professor in the International Peace and Conflict Resolution Program at American University. He draws on popular education methods and critical studies to actively involve students in the subjects he teaches. He is a frequent presenter and workshop leader on a variety of issues, including Middle East politics, US movements for justice, and the theory and practice of nonviolence.
Jacob Pace is Communications and Grants Coordinator at IFPB, and staffs the San Francisco office. Jake joined the organization in 2007 after first traveling to the region with an IFPB delegation in 2003. He previously worked with Partners for Peace, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and the Resource Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz, California. He spent more than a year in Israel/Palestine between 2003 and 2005 working with the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem in Bethlehem and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in the Gaza Strip. His work experience has focused particularly on media advocacy and grassroots organizing. He co-led an IFPB delegation in August 2008.