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Green Rabbi

Midwesterner Fred Dobb preaches from a
Reconstructionist pulpit in Washington.

LYNNE MEREDITH COHN
StaffWriter

R

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NORTHWESTERN HIGHWAY, BETWEEN 12 & 13 MILE ROADS

abbi Fred Dobb rides his
bicycle to work as much as
he can. Forget that it can
be a 4 1/2- mile round-trip
in a city where it rains every other day.
It's part of his "environmental com-
mitment."
Like the year he took off from col-
lege to walk across the United States.
At 20 years old, Dobb, a
Washington, D.C., resident, left
Brandeis University for a year to join
an activist group walking cross-country
to raise environmental awareness.
"I spoke at dozens of Jewish institu-
tions, and ever since then I've been very
involved in Jewish environmental edu-
cation," he says.
Dobb, 27, was born in Toledo and
considered the Detroit Jewish suburbs
his primary Jewish connection; his par-
ents, Janet and Gary Helper, moved
here about a decade ago and belong to
Temple Israel.
He grew up "traditional Reform —
Reform in terms of affiliation and tra-
ditional in terms of outlook. My mom
was part of a number of Jewish volun-
teer groups and agencies, and we went
to synagogue — Shomer Emunim (in
Sylvania, Ohio) — fairly frequently. I
was the one nerd who actually enjoyed
Sunday school.
"I was very active in MSTY during
high school, so Detroit was the center
of my social life," he said, including
college summers here and two stints
working at the Jewish Community
Council.
Dobb credits the Reform movement
and its youth groups for inspiring him
to get involved. He is a former board
member of Brandeis Hillel and national
Hillel.
But on the East Coast, Dobb experi-
enced Reconstructionism, the growing
sect of Judaism that has yet to establish
a dominant presence in Michigan.
"Over time I came to see that what I
loved about Reform in the youth
movement was being actualized on the
broader scale best in
Reconstructionism," he says.
For example, early on Dobb forged a

commitment to feminist values and
women's issues. The year that he was
choosing where to attend, rabbinical
school, "the flagship Cincinnati campus
of the Hebrew Union College just gave
its first woman faculty member tenure
in 115 years, while for years already the
Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
had developed the Jewish Women's
Studies Project, to bring feminist issues
into the core curriculum."
In Reform youth group, Dobb
"learned about egalitarianism and
equality and do-it-yourself Judaism.
While those things happen in Reform
and happen very well ... but it's more
ingrained in the fabric of
Reconstructionism. I wanted to be on
the cutting edge.

Rabbi Fred Dobb: Expanding the
Jewish view.

"Many innovations that
Reconstructionism pioneered, Reform
and Conservative took on years later —
gay and lesbian inclusion, ecology as a
central issue, and the idea of a rabbi as
facilitator and not sermonizer. That
spoke to me."
It wasn't easy. Dobb feared "switch-
ing labels" in case it limited the oppor-
tunities available to him.
So he spread himself around the
Jewish spectrum: as a Wexner fellow; at
CLAL, run by modern Orthodox
leader Rabbi Yitz Greenberg; as rabbi

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