Welcome to my home page where you can learn more about my books, my lectures and me.

I’m a frequent contributor to the Op-Ed page of the Los Angeles Daily News, the Daily News’ blog: Friendly Fire, and I write a syndicated column, Out of My Mind, which is carried by the Fullerton Observer.

I taught at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and currently teach at the American Jewish University. My COURSES include the Roots and Bitter Fruits of Anti-Semitism, Great Religious Trials and The Currents in Current Events. As a break from the difficulties of the world, I sometimes use my first profession as a stand up comedian (political satire—not mother-in-law jokes) to teach: 100 Years of Jewish Humor.

Academically, I specialize in Comparative Religion—How Christianity Developed from Hebrew Scriptures, stories and archetypes; and how Islam grew from both Judaism and primitive Christianity. My sub-specialty is in Islam.

I am also a regular speaker in Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Jewish Synagogues, Unitarian Universalist congregations and Hadassah chapters. I have served as Scholar in Residence on Islam and Middle Eastern politics for many synagogues in California and the Western United States.

I am a native of Southern California, a graduate of USC (International Relations) and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. I studied philosophy in Vienna and spent two years in the Peace Corps in Tunisia and speak Arabic, French and German.

I am married to Helene Schnider-Dobrer, and we live in Southern California near two out of three grown and married boys and four out of six perfect grandchildren.