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.

Interfaith Peace-Builders Board of Directors

Michael F. Brown is communications manager at the Institute for Middle East Understanding. Previously, he was a fellow at the Palestine Center, executive director of Partners for Peace, and Washington correspondent for Middle East International. He lived and worked in the Gaza Strip off and on between 1993 and 2000, first with the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme and later with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. His op-eds have been published in the Baltimore Sun, International Herald Tribune, San Diego Union-Tribune, and News & Observer.

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.

Shady Hakim is currently a student at Georgetown University where he is completing an MA in Arab Studies and a Ph.D. in History. From 2002-2005, he directed the Middle East Peace Education Program of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Los Angeles, CA. Shady has spent over three months in the occupied West Bank, working with the Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron in solidarity with Palestinian and Israeli peace and human rights groups (1998-99), and more recently on an FOR delegation in summer 2004, as well as leading a delegation of CASA students in spring 2006. He has also spent several years studying abroad in Cairo, Egypt.

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 November 2006.

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.

Alta Schwartz has worked on Middle East issues for the past decade. She holds a B.A. from Emory University in Near Eastern Studies and is currently completing her Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in nonprofit management at the Andrew Young School for Policy Studies at GSU. Alta has traveled through out much of the Middle East, and has participated in various programs including Seeds of Peace, Interfaith Peace Builders, and the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. She volunteers with several organizations, including the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Middle East Peace Education Program of the American Friends Service Committee.

Interfaith Peace-Builders Staff

Mike Daly has worked with Interfaith Peace-Builders since July 2004. Before coming to IFPB, he studied Arabic 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 last co-led an IPFB delegation in March 2006.

Joe Groves has been working with IFPB since 2001. He has worked on Middle East issues for 29 years, working in the US, in Israel and Palestine and living in 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.

Jacob Pace joined Interfaith Peace-Builders in 2007 as Assistant Director. 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 Center for Human Rights in the Gaza Strip.