22 | SEPTEMBER 19 • 2019
Jews in the D
R
abbi Asher Lopatin is in
line to take over as the
new executive director
of the Jewish Community
Relations Council/AJC, pursu-
ant to passing final employment
checks.
Last summer, Lopatin was
welcomed by Detroit’
s Modern
Orthodox community as rabbi
at Kehillat Etz Chayim, a con-
gregation started by a group of
families in Huntington Woods.
He also launched the Detroit
Center for Civil Discourse, a
not-for-profit program co-di-
rected by Professor Saeed Khan,
a senior lecturer at Wayne State
University, that recently wel-
comed its first cohort of fellows,
who will work on projects that
promote respectful debate.
According to a JCRC/AJC
source, once Lopatin is officially
welcomed as JCRC/AJC execu-
tive director, he will continue on
the board of the Detroit Center
for Civil Discourse but not take
a salary. The source said Lopatin
plans to continue as rabbi for
the 35 families of Kehillat Etz
Chayim.
Lopatin earned a bachelor’
s
degree at Boston University
and a master’
s degree in medi-
eval Arab thought as a Rhodes
scholar at Oxford University,
where he also began work on his
doctorate in international rela-
tions. He returned to the U.S.
to attend Yeshiva University’
s
rabbinical program, where he
received ordination.
For 18 years, Lopatin served
as rabbi of Anshe Shalom B’
nai
Israel, a Modern Orthodox con-
gregation in Chicago. Prior to
coming to Detroit, Lopatin led
Yeshiva Chovevei Torah, a liberal
Orthodox rabbinical seminary
in the Bronx, N.Y. Lopatin’
s
made a name for himself as a
maverick, a spiritual leader who
is unafraid to stake unpopular
halachic (legal) positions on
women’
s roles in the synagogue,
gay marriage, conversion and
other topics that have occasion-
ally put him in the crosshairs of
the Orthodox rabbinate.
Last year, Lopatin told
the JN he decided to come
to Detroit because his wife,
Rachel, a Hillel Day School
alumna, wanted to be clos-
er to her father, Dr. Warren
Tessler (she was raised in West
Bloomfield), and he was also
“excited about being in a city
in the midst of a rebirth.” The
family lives in Huntington
Woods, and their children
attend Farber Hebrew Day
School in Southfield.
“I’
m interested in broader
questions of race in America,
Israelis and Palestinians, issues
of gentrification and affordable
housing, social justice issues,”
Lopatin told the JN last sum-
mer, adding that the move to
Detroit would fulfill his desire
to be “involved in the Jewish
community and to take on
broader issues we care about in
America and the world.”
The Detroit Center for Civil
Discourse website features a
quote from Lopatin: “Our dif-
ferences need not pull us apart.
Disagreements and divides can
be an opportunity to find com-
mon ground if we engage with
respect and civility.”
JN STAFF
NY JEWISH WEEK
Rabbi Asher
Lopatin
New Leader
at JCRC/AJC
/
Rabbi Asher Lopatin is on tap
to be new executive director.
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