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The United States should not wait for other countries to come onboard before imposing its own sanctions on Iran, U.S. Senator Robert Menendez said at Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple in New Brunswick on April 18.

''We cannot wait,'' the New Jersey Democrat told the audience. ''This is where we have to lead and the world will follow.''

Menendez was among the speakers at the synagogue's biennial ''Gertrude and Milton Kleinman Consultation on Conscience.'' The day's other speakers included Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder and executive director of JStreet; Steven Fulop, a Jersey City councilman; and a slate of other community activists.

The daylong program, established by the synagogue 16 years ago, is modeled on the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism's own conference in Washington, D.C., and is held on alternate years.

''Synagogues need to take out time to reflect on the critical issues of the day,'' Rabbi Bennett Miller of Anshe Emeth told The Jewish State, ''and as institutions in the Jewish community, we need to show how they can respond.''

Menendez spoke about his connection to the idea of tikkun olam, which he said has informed his own approach to issues as diverse as education, healthcare, and foreign policy.

''Although I am not Jewish, I value this tradition of the ethical imperative,'' he said.

It was this ''ethical imperative,'' Menendez said, that led him to run for the Union City school board at age 20, and later serve as a mayor and state legislator.

As a congressman, Menendez said his most important decisions have related to questions of war and peace. Menendez said he supported the war in Afghanistan for national security reasons, but added he opposed the Iraq war after concluding that Saddam Hussein's government, while a despotic regime, was not an imminent threat to the United States.

''It was not an easy vote from a political perspective,'' he said of his vote against the resolution to authorize the invasion of Iraq.

Menendez said that it was also because of the ethical imperative that he fought for healthcare reform.

''It seemed to me that in the greatest country on the face of the earth that we could do better,'' he said.

Menendez expressed concern over a recent Tel Aviv University study that reported an increase in global anti-Semitism over the past year.

He also spoke about what he described as his long-standing commitment to Israel, adding that even when he was a Hudson County legislator, representing a district that contained more Arabs and Muslims than Jews, he remained a steadfast supporter of the Jewish state. A strong partnership with Israel, Menendez said, ''is in the national interests of the United States, the national security interests of the United States, and the ethical imperative toward an ally that is so important for the United States.''

Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state, he added, ''is etched in the annals of history.''

''One cannot deny the Jewish people's rights to have security in their homeland; in a land they have had a connection with for thousands of years,'' Menendez said.

Fulop, who was elected to the city council in 2005 at the age of 27, discussed how his own Jewish values and upbringing have shaped how he views his role as a public official.

He noted that many of the individuals arrested in the federal corruption sting last summer hailed from Jersey City. While those public officials and businesspeople clearly failed to live up to the ethical standard expected of them, Fulop said that other, more complicated ethical challenges confront politicians on a daily basis.

It is the responsibility of politicians to live up to a high ethical standard as well as that of the public to vote for ones who will, he said; then, voters must hold their representatives accountable.

''The reality is that there is a shared responsibility between public servants and the people who vote for them,'' Fulop said.

Ben-Ami, who founded the self-described ''pro-Israel, pro-peace'' lobby two years ago, said he established the organization to fill a ''vacuum'' in the American Jewish communal landscape.

JStreet, he said, represents a ''voice that has not been heard clearly enough in American politics or the American Jewish community.''

Ben-Ami said the fact that the pro-Israel lobby has historically been among the most effective in Washington is ''something we should be proud of.''

''I am supportive of much of what has been accomplished,'' he said, noting the bipartisan support for the strategic relationship between the two countries, the annual military aid provided by the U.S., and the American consensus that Israel retain its ''qualitative military edge.''

But, Ben-Ami added that the pro-Israel lobby, to his dismay, has been dominated by ''more hawkish voices.''

''That does not speak for me and does not speak for many Jewish people, and does not speak for one of the most progressive communities in the United States,'' he said.

A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said, is ''essential to [Israel's] survival, health, and its future.''

The greatest threat to Israel is one of demography, said Ben-Ami. Soon, he noted, Arabs will soon outnumber Jews between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Israel, he then added, will have to ''choose between keeping settlements or being a Jewish democratic state.''

Ben-Ami said that although this threat is recognized by Israeli politicians across the political spectrum, Israeli administrations, including the current Netanyahu one, have not had ''the political strength to follow through.''

The United States, Ben-Ami suggested, is the only party that has the ''gravitas'' to bring an end to the conflict, and the Obama administration should be proactive in bringing about a resolution.

''What Israel doesn't need now is unquestioning love, but the stern hand of friendship,'' he said.

Ben-Ami said that the goal of JStreet is to ''re-define what it means to be pro-Israel in the 21st century.''

''We believe that being pro-Israel doesn't have to have an 'anti,' a 'con','' he said.