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.
[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 Schwarzschild, John S. Ruskay, and Milton Viorst.
On February 20, 1977, when Breira held its first national membership conference in Chevy Chase, Maryland, the convention was attacked by Jewish Defense League members.
[7] In May 1977, the Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism blocked two members of Breira, Wolf and Rabbi Everett Gendler, from membership in the organization's executive council.
[8] Isaiah L. Kenen, the former American Israel Public Affairs Committee executive director, while still serving as the editor of its Near East Report, helped to label the group as "anti-Israel", "pro-PLO", and "self-hating Jews".
Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, was the only major leader of a Jewish organization to defend Breira.