Rabbi Bruce Cohen, beloved former leader of the Temple of Universal Judaism, died Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at his White Plains home.

He was 65 and had been fighting sternum bone cancer for a year.

In 1976, Rabbi Cohen started a group called Interns for Peace after he read of the deaths of six Israeli Arabs and decided to visit Israel and work on Jewish-Arab relations.

From the start, the goal of the group was to get Jews and Arabs to work together on projects - road safety, gardening, neighborhood clean-ups, art festivals - as a way to learn to co-exist.

"If people can try to achieve a goal together, they might even be able to discuss their differences," Rabbi Cohen said recently, looking back at his work. "We want people to believe that they can be part of change."

His group, working closely with Israeli Arabs in numerous communities, trained some 250 "interns" who now work in many groups across Israel.

Board members of Interns for Peace gathered three weeks ago at the home of Bruce and Karen Cohen to talk about expanding the group's work. Cohen took part in the meetings but was critically ill.

"Wherever you go in the Arab sector, Rabbi Bruce and Interns for Peace are there and have left a mark," Farhat Agbaria, an Israeli Arab who worked with Cohen almost from the start, said at the time.

A funeral was held on August 4th at Sharon Gardens in Valhalla, New York.

A memorial service will be held on Nov. 7 at Congregation Kol Ami in White Plains.

"Bruce did the work of bringing people together so they would respect each other," his wife said Tuesday. "He also lived it. We did it in our own family. We had Muslims living with Jews in our family. It works. We love each other so much."

The Cohens adopted two Muslim children from Bosnia, a girl from China whom they raised Jewish and a Jewish boy from Florida. They now range in age from 30 to 16. The family later took in someone from Zimbabwe, as well.

Rabbi Cohen was born on May 8, 1945, in Buffalo to Judge Emil Laufer Cohen and Bernice Cohen. He was attending Cornell University when a professor suggested he become a rabbi. He later graduated from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati and received his Doctorate in Hebrew Letters in 1998.