The ad fortuitously appears the day before the 3rd Iraqi election this year; we can owe the timing to the schedule of the Reform annual conference, and the time it took for people to absorb and respond to the resolution, but it's a wonderful coincidence nonetheless.

More from the dissenters in the Reform movement:

A rabbi of a Reform synagogue in Danbury, Conn., Clifford Librach, said the letter “amplifies the extraordinary alienation from Israel and Israel's security on the part of the American Reform elite.”

“There may be a majority of American Reform Jews who are currently opposed to this war under any circumstances,” Rabbi Librach said, “but the role of leadership is not to rubberstamp misguided popular opinion. The new peace process in Israel has advanced in part because Iraq has been neutralized and removed from the equation.”

. . . . the longtime senior rabbi of the Stephen E.Wise Temple in Los Angeles, Isaiah Zeldin, said the union had stepped over the line. “They surely don't represent me, nor do they represent my congregation,” Rabbi Zeldin, whose Reform synagogue is one of the largest in America, with 3,500 congregants, said. The union was wrong to take a collective stance on the war, he said. “I think that the union has a right, indeed an obligation, to speak out on various issues. But in this one, we happen to be divided,” Rabbi Zeldin said.

Another Reform rabbi, Jon Haddon of Shearith Israel in Ridgefield, Conn., said the union had “moved too far to the left.” “I do feel that they kind of came out with a harsh, blanket statement of the president's policy in Iraq, and I just don't buy it 100%,” Rabbi Haddon said. “I believe a democracy in the Middle East besides Israel is good for the Middle East and good for the world. If that could be accomplished, it would be a blessing for the world.”