Meet the team.

Jerome M. Segal is the Director of the International Peace Consultancy, and he is the founder and President of The Jewish Peace Lobby, with 4000 members, including 400 Rabbis.

Dr. Segal holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Michigan (1975) and a MPA from the Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Univ. of Minnesota (1979).

In 1975 Dr. Segal worked as an aide to Congressman Donald M. Fraser when the Congressman was part of the US Delegation to the United Nations. He then served the Administrator of a House Budget Committee Task Force. Subsequently he worked for the US Agency for International Development, first as Coordinator for the Near East and then as Senior Advisor for Agency Planning. In 1988 he left government work to return to the academic world.

In 1987, Dr. Segal was a member of the first American-Jewish delegation to meet with the PLO leadership in Tunis. In 1988 his writings in Al-Quds and other publications played a catalytic role in promoting the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, issued in Algiers in November 1988. He also played a role in back-channel contacts that led to the opening of the US-PLO dialogue in December 1988.

Dr. Segal is the author of The Olive Branch From Palestine: The Palestinian Declaration of Independence and the Path out Out of the Current Impasse (2022), Negotiating Jerusalem (2000), Negotiating Jerusalem (2000), Creating the Palestinian State (1989), Negotiating Jerusalem (2000), as well as over 100 articles and op-ed pieces on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times. He writes frequently for the Israeli press and for the Palestinian paper, al-Quds.

In 2018 he challenged Senator Ben Cardin in the Maryland Democratic primary.

Dr. Segal is widely considered an “out of the box” policy innovator.

Dr. Leonard Grob is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, New Jersey. He currently serves as Associate Director of the International Peace Consultancy, headed by Dr. Jerome M. Segal.

Dr. Grob has an M.A. and Ph.D in Philosophy from the Pennsylvania State University. His B.A. degree is from Yale University.

Dr. Grob has published extensively in the areas of Israeli-Palestinian dialogue and Holocaust Studies. In 2006 he co-edited, with Dr. Mahmoud Watad, a book of interviews with thirty-four Israeli and Palestinian teenagers, entitled Teen Voices From the Holy Land: Who Am I To You? and published by Prometheus Books. During the last three decades, Dr. Grob has presented papers and has published works on the relationship between memory of the Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Among his publications are Anguished Hope: Holocaust Scholars Confront the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict and Encountering the Stranger: A Jewish-Christian-Muslim Trialogue, both co-edited with Dr. John K. Roth. A 2023 book, co-authored with Dr. Roth, is entitled Warnings: The Holocaust, Ukraine, and Endangered American Democracy. Dr. Grob also serves as Vice President of Partners for Progressive Israel (formerly MeretzUSA), an organization devoted to educating American Jews to advocate for a just peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Suheir Freitekh has completed one master’s degree focused on International Studies from Bir Zeit University and has almost completed a second master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Management in Haifa University.  This continued dedication and desire to learn more about other models and methods in order to build peace in a war-torn land has continued over years. Suheir is committed to peace and development exemplified first by her ongoing commitment to research and study in the field.

She has worked on conflicts and peace projects with INGO’s (such as International Crisis Group where she worked as researcher and as a consultant in other research stages) also she volunteers in different local NGO’s such as Palestine Israel Journal PIJ where she is an editorial board member, and involve in governmental activities as a former PA employee.

Recently, Suheir has accomplished peace fellowship sponsored by International Rotary Foundation in Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok / Thailand.

Dr. Sharon Lang, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Redlands, earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University’s Center for Middle East Studies and Department of Anthropology in 2000. Her book Sharaf Politics: Honor and Peacemaking in Israeli-Palestinian Society (2005) is based on ethnographic research among Israeli Palestinians and her doctoral manuscript, which received the Association for Israel Studies’ Ben-Halperin Award for Best Doctoral Dissertation. Dr. Lang is a board member of The International Peace Consultancy and founding member of the Jewish Peace Lobby, has taught extensively on Middle Eastern subjects since 1997, and has published a variety of works on gender construction, honor killings, and indigenous forms of conflict resolution.