Breira full name "Breira: A Project of Concern in Diaspora-Israel Relations" was an organizational founded to express a left-wing position on Israel in 1973 and it lasted until 1977.
Contents |
Breira dissented from what it saw as the hard line Jewish organizational perspective that said there is no alternative in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War. The group took the Hebrew name Breira - meaning "alternative" - as an answer to the cry of ein breira - “there is no alternative.”
In 1973, Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf served as founding chair of the movement. In its first public statement, Breira called for Israel to make territorial concessions and recognize the legitimacy of the national aspirations of the Palestinian people in order to achieve lasting peace. David Tuilin was the VP, Inge Gibel was the treasurer. Rabbi Gerald Sirotta was an active member. Its national chairman, Rabbi Arnold Wolf, stated that the name signified, “our desire for an alternative to the intransigence of both the PLO and the several governments of Israel.” The group proposed a two state solution.[1]
That year, Breira became a national membership organization of over one hundred Reform and Conservative rabbis and a number of important American Jewish writers and intellectuals, including Steven M. Cohen, Paul Cowan, Arthur Green, Irving Howe, Paula Hyman, Jack Nusan Porter, Henry Schwartzchild, John S. Ruskay, and Milton Viorst. In addition, “young Jewish radicals and students in the Jewish counter-culture helped to found Breira.”
Michael E. Staub states “Breira survived four tumultuous years. Its proposals on Israeli-Diaspora Jewish relations and Palestinian nationalism generated fierce international debate over the limits of public dissent and conflict in Jewish communal life, and virtually every major American Jewish organization took a public stand on the group and what it advocated.”[2]
There was an overlap of leadership with Americans for Progressive Israel. A full list of members is listed in The National Post And Opinion, August 9, 1974.[3] They published a journal called Interchange.
In July 1976, Spiro Agnew's organization, Education for Democracy, labeled them as dangerous and "anti-Israel",[4] even as Agnew himself was being accused of Antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment.[5]
Hillel was accused of punishing employees who joined Breira.
In Dec 1976, they agreed to meet with the PLO. Arnold Wolf stated that they meet as private individuals and it should be know that they are not involved in any political negotiations. The initiative was supported by Jewish intellectuals Nathan Glatzer and Irving Howe. The representative to the meeting included Rabbi Max Ticktin and Arthur Waskow representing Breira, and the American Jewish Congress, B'nai Brith, and the National Council of Jewish Women. Waskow wrote up a widely circulated opinion piece about speaking to the PLO.[6]
In Dec 1976, The Jerusalem Post ran a story portraying the organization as supporting terrorists, leading to many members leaving the group. On February 20, 1977, when Breira held its first national membership conference in Chevy Chase, Maryland, the convention was attacked by JDL members.[7]
In May 1977, the Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism blocked two members, Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf and Rabbi Everett Gendler of Breira from membership in the organization's executive council. The RA felt that the organization was giving aid to Israel's enemies. At that time, according to the New York Times article, Breira had 1500 members.[8]
Isaiah L. Kenen, the former AIPAC executive director, still serving as the editor of its Near East Report, helped to label the group as "anti-Israel," "pro-PLO," and "self-hating Jews." Kenen charged that Breira "undermined U.S. support for Israel." Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, was the only major leader of a Jewish organization to stick up for Breira. He called the attack on Breira a "witch hunt."[9] Edward Tivnan observed in his book, The Lobby: Jewish Political Power and American Foreign Policy: "By attacking Breira, Jewish leaders had turned over much of their power to AIPAC, Israel's most loyal agent in the U.S. and a proved enemy of dissent from Israeli policies, among Jews as well as gentiles." [10]
Torn at the Roots: The Crisis of Jewish Liberalism in Postwar America By Michael E. Staub
The Road To Middle East Peace By Carolyn Toll Oppenheim available at http://www.openhramle.co.il/english/article18.shtml.htm
Divided We Stand: American Jews, Israel, and the Peace Process By Ofira Seliktar
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July 1992, pages 7–8, 89-91 http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0792/9207007.html