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About
Marshall Jordan Breger (August 14, 1946 – August 3, 2025) was an American legal scholar, conservative Republican, and advocate for interfaith dialogue. Born in New York City to Miles and Beatrice Breger, he grew up in Rego Park, Queens, and later lived in Washington, D.C., and Silver Spring, Maryland. He earned a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania (1967), a B.Phil. from Oriel College, Oxford University (1970), and a J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School (1973), where he was an editor of the law review and a member of the Order of the Coif.
Breger held prominent roles in Republican administrations, including Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan and liaison to the Jewish community (1982–1984), Chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States (1985–1991), Alternate U.S. Delegate to the U.N. Human Rights Commission (1987–1989), and Solicitor of Labor at the U.S. Department of Labor (1991–1993), where he also served as Acting Assistant Secretary for Labor-Management Standards (1992). He was a visiting and senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation (1982–1983, 1993–1995). In 1985, as Reagan's Jewish liaison, he faced criticism for defending the president's visit to the Bitburg military cemetery, which included Waffen-SS graves, as noted in a New York Times profile.
Academically, Breger taught at the University of Texas School of Law, State University of New York at Buffalo Law School, New York Law School (as associate professor in the early 1980s), and Bar-Ilan University in Israel (visiting professor). In 1994, he joined the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America as a professor, teaching for 30 years until his death; his courses included administrative law, constitutional law, and legal issues in the Middle East peace process. He served as Vice President of the conservative Jewish Policy Center and testified over 30 times before Congress on constitutional law and Middle East topics.
A prolific author and expert on administrative law, interfaith relations, and Middle East issues, Breger co-authored Independent Agencies in the United States: Law, Structure, and Politics (2015, with Gary J. Edles), edited Jerusalem's Holy Places and the Peace Process (1998), and contributed to The Vatican-Israel Accord (2004). He was a leading authority on the legal status of holy places, recognized across Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and other faith communities.
Breger was a prominent figure in interreligious understanding, including a solo trip to Iran in 2002 to lecture on free speech at the University of Tehran; co-founding the 'Abrahamic Dialogue' with Ayatollah Ahmad Iravani, convening U.S., Iranian, European, and Israeli scholars for over 20 years; organizing trips for imams to Auschwitz and Dachau (2010, 2013), leading to Islamic condemnations of Holocaust denial; and contributing to the Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and Israel. As a conservative Republican, he publicly debated Frank Gaffney on Sharia law.
In his personal life, Breger met his wife, Jennifer (Jennie), at Oxford while seeking directions to the Jewish Society. They had two daughters: Sarah Gabriela Breger, managing editor of Moment magazine, and Esther Maria Breger, former assistant editor at The New Republic and freelance writer. He was survived by his wife, daughters, son-in-law Aaron Malinoff, sister Lynne Tag, and grandchildren Maya, Lev, and Ira. An observant Jew, his funeral was held at Woodside Synagogue in Silver Spring, MD, with burial at Baron Hirsch Cemetery in Staten Island, NY. Breger died at age 78 in Silver Spring, Maryland, surrounded by family, while preparing to teach a course on 'antisemitism and the law' that fall.