He is a rabbi, a psychoanalyst, and an occasional jazz and rock 'n' roll drummer who has been blind since childhood.

Now, at the age of 57, Dennis Shulman is pursuing still another field of interest. He is a Democratic candidate seeking to replace three-term Congressman Scott Garrett in what has been a traditionally safe Republican seat in New Jersey's District 5.

His "unaffiliated but essentially Reform" synagogue is Chavurah Beth Shalom in Alpine, a few miles from his home in the Bergen County village of Demarest.

That's where his combination rabbinical study and therapist's office will share space with his campaign headquarters.

Seated comfortably in the basement multipurpose room, on the day that he officially announced his first stab at elected office, Shulman acknowledged his political battle will be a new sort of challenge.

"This district has been Republican for a long time — but not next year," he said. "It's a whole different world. It is going to be a good year for Democrats. It is going to be a good year for people with fresh voices. Everybody knows the career politicians have not done a good job. Everybody is upset."

What particularly upsets Shulman about Garrett is that "for six years he has been part of the Republican majority and has failed to challenge a very conservative agenda. He has opposed stem cell research and a woman's right to choose. What this district needs is a problem-solver — like a psychologist or a rabbi."

Shulman also scores Garrett for being a "major enthusiast for the war in Iraq."

"I certainly am not," Shulman said. He calls for "sensible redeployment. We now find ourselves in the middle of a civil war, and America has no place in the middle of a civil war."

But if he were a member of the House, the candidate said he would support more funding of the war effort.

"Of course I would vote to support the troops that are there," he said. "You don't just withdraw body armor or tanks because you're against the war."

Shulman said he became blind "very gradually over my childhood" in Worcester, Mass.

"By the time I was in the seventh grade I had to read Braille, but I did not have to carry a cane until I was 16 or so," he recalled.

After prep school at Worcester Academy, he graduated magna cum laude from Brandeis University before getting his doctorate in psychology from Harvard in 1976.

"I've been a psychologist for many years, and a lot of what I do is teaching," he said. "I began lecturing on psychological perspectives in the Bible, and one thing led to another. I started realizing I wanted to be a rabbi. I took courses at the Academy for Jewish Religion in Riverdale [in the Bronx] and then was ordained privately by three rabbis in a Reform beit din in 2003. Now I'm maintaining both hats — a yarmulke and whatever psychoanalysts wear."

Shulman recently returned from a trip to Israel and said the visit confirmed his view that the Iraq war made Iran much more powerful in the Middle East.

"The people I talked to there were very clear," he said. "If America is not strong and more respected in the world, Israel is in danger. Most of them said, ‘We are worried. America is less strong. Its image in the world has been tarnished, and by going into Iraq, Bush took his eye off a Middle East peace.'"

Turning to domestic issues, Shulman said, "Energy independence is a big one. Our government has been ignoring it, but every time an American goes to fill up a tank of gas, the people in Iran and Saudi Arabia and Venezuela are dancing in the streets. Science is very clear that issues of energy are also affecting the environment."

Calling Garrett "a cheerleader" for much of the Bush administration's programs, Shulman said, "When people put ideology ahead of science, that troubles me."

He also noted Garrett's opposition to federal funding of expanded research on fetal tissue stem-cell lines.

As a rabbi and a therapist, he said, he knows many families struggling with such threatening conditions as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases — for which stem cell research offers hope for treatment and cures. "Garrett's ideology is getting in the way of these people who are struggling terribly," said Shulman.

Although as a House member he would not have been able to vote up or down on the nomination of Michael Mukasey as United States attorney general, Shulman said he opposed the appointment because of the nominee's hesitation to talk about torture, particularly the outlawed practice of simulated drowning called waterboarding.

"We have to be strong, but we also have to realize this country represents something to ourselves and to the world. There is a terrible sin that America can commit, which is forgetting what we represent."

If elected, Shulman said, he would view himself in part as a special representative of what he calls the "disability community."

"I will be the first blind member of the House of Representatives since 1930-something, and of course, as a blind person, I am going to be sensitive to issues of disability."

Rather than focus on his June primary race against civil rights attorney Camille Abate of Glen Rock, Shulman is getting ready for his run against Garrett in the broad-based district that includes all of Sussex and Warren counties and portions of Passaic and Bergen counties.

"We are going to campaign throughout the district," he said. "That requires a lot of energy and a lot of money — both of which we have."