Jon Dobrer has been a UU minister since his ordination at Starr King Church in Hayward in 1972. He served in Studio City before coming to Fullerton almost 12 years ago.

    Jon holds degrees in international relations from USC School of International Relations and in divinity from Starr King School and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He studied philosophy in grad school at USC and psychology at the University of Vienna.

    During his two years in the Peace Corps in Tunisia, in addition to his teaching, Jon studied Islam with the Imam of Nabeul. Later at the GTU he specialized in comparative religion, doing most of his work at The Center for Judaic Studies and the Anglican School (CDSP), where he concentrated on New Testament hermeneutics. Jon is sinfully proud of being the only non-candidate for the Roman Catholic priesthood to have studied canon law with the Jesuits.

    Jon carries his interest in comparative religion into his teaching. He's taught at the GTU and for the last ten years has been a professor of comparative religion at the University of Judaism, where he specializes in the Hebrew sources of the Christian Gospels and sub-specializes in Islam.

    After about 12 years of writing a weekly column for his church newsletter, Dobrer went public and now writes two twice-monthly columns-one for our local Fullerton Observer (www.fullertonobserver.com) and one for the Los Angeles Daily News (www.dailynews.com). Every couple of years his columns are collected in to anthologies-for sale on Amazon or out of his trunk.

    Before becoming old, serious, and dull, Jon worked as a stand up comedian doing political satire in clubs from L.A. to San Francisco and from Palo Alto to Albuquerque.

    Jon is married to Helene, and they have between them three wonderful boys, three outstanding daughters-in-law and three perfect grandchildren with two more on the way.