Blind Rabbi’s New Vision For Congress

Rabbi Dennis Shulman: “Outraged” at country’s direction at the national level.

Rabbi Dennis Shulman: “Outraged” at country’s direction at the national level.

by James D. Besser/Washington

A blind rabbi from Bergen County thinks he can help Congress see the light on the issues of the Iraq war and its connection to a faltering economy.
Political handicappers say that Rabbi Dennis Shulman — who is also a psychotherapist and a prolific writer on Jewish religious issues — has a chance to win in November, even though he is trying to unseat a Republican in the GOP-leaning 5th Congressional District.
Last week Rabbi Shulman got a boost when he was endorsed by retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who said, “Congress needs people who are not cookie-cutter career politicians.”
That description fits Rabbi Shulman. Blind from childhood and raised in a working-class family, he managed to earn a doctorate in clinical psychology from Harvard. In

2003 he was ordained as a rabbi and published a book on “The Genius of Genesis: A Psychoanalyst and Rabbi Examines the First Book of the Bible.”
While continuing his psychoanalysis practice, he serves as associate rabbi of Chavurah Beth Shalom, a Reform havurah in Alpine, N.J.
In an interview, Rabbi Shulman said running for Congress is a natural next step in his unusual career odyssey. “The major message I’ve carried to my patients, my congregants and to myself as a blind person is that we can do better,” he told The Jewish Week. “And in solving personal, spiritual or national problems, the principles are pretty much the same.”
Rabbi Shulman said his candidacy is fueled by his “outrage at the direction our country has taken for the past seven and a half years on the national level,” and particularly the policies that produced a seemingly endless war in Iraq.
And, he said, he is angry that the current incumbent — Rep. Scott Garrett, a Republican — is one of the most conservative members of the House, despite representing a district with a history of electing “moderate” Republicans.
“He was given a 100 percent rating by the American Conservative Union,” Rabbi Shulman said of Garrett. “He’s the only northern legislator who voted against the Voting Rights Act reauthorization; he voted against aid to Hurricane Katrina victims, against the economic stimulus package. And he voted to support Christian proselytizing at the Air Force Academy.”
As a result, Rabbi Shulman says he can cobble together a coalition of “Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans” to unseat the three-term incumbent.
His campaign is focusing on three issues, the rabbi said: opposition to current Iraq policies, the economy and health care. He drew a direct link between the first two.
“We are not paying for the war today — our children and grandchildren will be paying,” he said.

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