Professor Marshall Breger participated in an international conference on Jewish and Shia Legal Reasoning at Indiana University June 26-28. The conference explored the hypothesis that there is an elective affinity between Shia and Jewish jurisprudence and their theo-political expressions.

Breger presented a paper on “The Effort to Implement Jewish law in the Constitution of the State of Israel.” Breger argued that those religious Jews (religious Zionists) who believed the creation of the state of Israel was the “dawn of the redemption” felt that a Jewish state must be run entirely by Jewish law. Those religious (non and anti Zionists) who felt otherwise were more focused on operating as an interest group securing political and economic benefits for the religious community. He discussed the pre-1948 differences in the legal approaches of then Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog and Rav. Chaim Ozer Grodzinski in this regard. He further explored the development of Jewish law and Jewish tradition in Israeli statutes.

Other participants in his panel on Constitutionalism and Religion included Marzieh Tofighi Darian, Princeton University and Masoud Noori, New York University. Other topics discussed at the conference included the language of prayer, natural law, theocracy, the notion of legal self, and gender in Shia and Jewish jurisprudence.

Breger has taught courses in International Law, International Religious Liberty, the Legal and Political Status of Jerusalem, and Legal Issues of the Middles East Peace Process at the Columbus School of Law.