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Expanding Boundaries
Rabbi Joseph Klein sees Oak Park as a melting pot of Judaism, with a lot of potential.
LYNNE MEREDITH COHN STAFF WRITER
W
hen he was a rabbi in Chattanooga, Tenn., Rabbi
Joseph Klein helped establish a community reli-
gious school. By its second year, even Orthodox chil-
dren were signing up.
As the new rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in Oak Park, Klein
envisions forming "a centralized Jewish community" in-
volving his Reform synagogue, nearby Conservative Con-
gregation Beth Shalom and the bevy of Orthodox shuls, which
are Emanu-El's neighbors. That joint effort, he says, "can
take a leadership role in the greater Jewish community of
Detroit."
Is he dreaming? Or is the new Reform face in town seri-
ous about linking people on all levels of Jewish observance?
To Klein, Detroit appears as a "diverse community and
very healthy community — when people are secure in who
they are, they do not deprecate others. I've been welcomed
by all."
Klein didn't start out wanting to be a rabbi. In fact, he took
pre-med courses in college and worked summers at camps
run by the Reform movement's umbrella organization, the
Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
"My senior year, I was scheduled to be unit head, and I
was enjoying that preparation. I realized, as a graduating
senior, I would never be able to do [this kind of work] again,"
Klein recalls.
So he pulled the medical school applications and took a
year off, 'trying to decide what to do." What he came up with
was the desire "to teach Judaica at the
college level." So, Klein applied to He-
Rabbi Klein and his
brew Union College-Jewish Institute of
banjo check out
Religion, "in hopes of gaining a Ph.D."
Emanu
El's bimah.
"When I went in for the interview, they
asked me why I wanted to be a rabbi,"
he recalls. "I said I didn't." They asked why he was there,
and Klein replied that he thought HUC was the "best place
for a quality Jewish education," and that, if they wanted to
make him a rabbi at the end of five years of training, so be
it, "but it did not appeal to me at all."
Obviously, that changed. While at HUC's Cincinnati cam-
pus, the Toledo native helped out in a local congregation. He
enjoyed that work so much, he was "happy when they made
me a rabbi."
Klein spent three years as an assistant rabbi in St. Louis,
15 years at a Terre Haute, Ind., shul and four years in Chat-
tanooga, before coming to Detroit.
He and his wife, Barbara, both from Toledo, "were anx-
ious to come back home. I felt a little out of place in the South,"
says the rabbi, speaking with a twinge of southern accent.
Klein's parents still live in Toledo, as do two of his wife's
sisters. Klein's daughter, Ellie, is a recent graduate of Amer-
ican University in Washington, D.C., and his son, Adam, is
a junior at Emory University in Atlanta.
"I think that Emanu-El is most fortunate to be in a grow-
ing, thriving and very vital Oak Park community," Klein
says. Although he has no specific plans for programming
changes, the rabbi says he hopes to expand the temple's adult
education offerings. Eventually, the synagogue might also
target younger members.
"We certainly would like to bring young and single adults
into the congregation, but we have no immediate plans for
far-ranging programs," he adds.
Tonight, Klein will be installed at Shabbat services by
Rabbi Josef Davidson, a Conservative rabbi from Chat-
tanooga, who created and directed the community religious
school with Klein. 0
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