 HUC campus in Jerusalem | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Established | 1875; 150 years ago (1875) |
| President | Andrew Rehfeld |
| Location | |
| Affiliations | Union for Reform Judaism |
| Website | www |
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TheHebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion (also known asHebrew Union College) is an institution of higher Jewish education and the academic, spiritual, & professional leadership development center of Reform Judaism. It has three locations in theUnited States and one location inJerusalem. It is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in theAmericas[1] and the main seminary for trainingrabbis,cantors, educators and communal workers inReform Judaism. Hebrew Union College has campuses inCincinnati, Ohio,New York City,Los Angeles, andJerusalem. The Jerusalem campus is the only seminary inIsrael for trainingReform Jewish clergy.
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Hebrew Union College was founded in Cincinnati in 1875 under the leadership of RabbiIsaac Mayer Wise.[2][3]Jacob Ezekiel was Secretary of the Board, registrar, and treasurer from the College's inception until just before his death in 1899. The first rabbinical class graduated in 1883.[4] The graduation banquet for this class became known as theTrefa Banquet because it included food that was notkosher, such asclams,soft-shell crabs,shrimp,frogs' legs and dairy products served immediately after meat. At the time, Reformrabbis were split over the question of whether the Jewish dietary restrictions were still applicable. Some of the more traditionalist Reform rabbis thought the banquet menu went too far, and sought an alternative between Reform Judaism andOrthodox Judaism which led to the founding of AmericanConservative Judaism.[4]
In 1950, Hebrew Union College gained a second campus when it merged with the rival ReformJewish Institute of Religion in New York. The Jewish Institute of Religion was previously affiliated with theStephen Wise Free Synagogue next door.[5] Additional campuses were added in Los Angeles in 1954 and in Jerusalem in 1963.[6]
In 1979, Hebrew Union College moved its New York campus from the original Jewish Institute of Religion building to 1 West Fourth Street inGreenwich Village. The Jewish Association for Services for the Aged took over the building until 1997, when theRamaz School, in an expansion deal for itself andYork Prep School, bought the building and traded it with York for their prior campus on the block of Ramaz.[5] In January 2025, the building on West 4th Street was sold to New York University for $75 million. HUC will leave the property by 2027, pending renovation of its new location in another building in Manhattan.[7] The college acquired theFirst Battery Armory to serve as its new location in February 2025.[8]
Hebrew Union College is an international seminary and graduate school offering a wide variety of academic and professional programs. In addition to its Rabbinical School, the college includes Schools of Graduate Studies, Education, Jewish Non-Profit Management, andsacred music, a program inBiblical archaeology and anIsraeli rabbinical program.[9]
The Los Angeles campus runs many of its programs and degrees in cooperation with the neighboringUniversity of Southern California.[10] Their 50-year collaboration includes the creation of theCenter for Muslim-Jewish Engagement, an interfaith think tank through the partnership of HUC, USC, and Omar Foundation. CMJE[11] holds religious text-study programs across Los Angeles.
RabbiAlfred Gottschalk was appointed as Hebrew Union College's sixth president, following the death ofNelson Glueck. As president, Gottschalk oversaw the growth and expansion of the Hebrew Union College campuses, the ordination ofSally Priesand as the firstfemale rabbi in the United States, the investiture of Reform Judaism's first femalehazzan and the ordination ofNaamah Kelman as the first female rabbi to be ordained in Israel.[12]
In 1996, RabbiSheldon Zimmerman was appointed as the 7th President of Hebrew Union College. He was succeeded in 2000 by RabbiDavid Ellenson as the 8th President. The 9th president of Hebrew Union College, elected in 2014, was RabbiAaron D. Panken, Ph.D. A noted authority on rabbinic andSecond Temple literature, with research interests in the historical development of legal concepts and terms, Rabbi Panken was killed in a plane crash on May 5, 2018, while piloting a single-engine Aeronca 7AC overNew York'sHudson Valley.[13][14]
Andrew Rehfeld was elected the 10th president on December 18, 2018, and inaugurated at Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati on October 27, 2019.[15]
On April 11, 2022,[3] the Board of Governors at Hebrew Union College voted to shutter the residential rabbinical program in Cincinnati by 2026 due to financial troubles and falling enrollment.[16][17] Also in 2022, Hebrew Union College for the first time granted a certificate of ordination to anonbinary candidate.[18]
The cantorial school of the Hebrew Union College was founded in 1948. The school is located on the New York campus at One West Fourth Street. It offers a five-year graduate program, conferring the degree of Master of Sacred Music in the fourth year and ordination as cantor in the fifth year.
Cantorial School at Hebrew Union College begins in Jerusalem and continues for the next four years in New York. While in Israel, students study Hebrew, and Jewish music, and get to know Israel. Cantorial students study alongside Rabbinical and Education students. In New York, the program includes professional learning opportunities as a student-cantor, in which students serve congregations within and outside of the NY area.
The curriculum includes liturgical music classes covering traditional Shabbat, High Holiday and Festival nusach, Chorus, Musicology, Reform Liturgy and Composition; Judaica and text classes such as Bible, Midrash and History; and professional development. Each student is assigned practica (mini-recitals) during the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year of school culminating with a Senior Recital (based on a thesis) during the 5th year.
Rabbi David Ellenson, then president of Hebrew Union College, announced on January 27, 2011, that the School of Sacred Music would be renamed the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music in honor ofDebbie Friedman. The renaming officially occurred on December 7, 2011.[19][20]
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Hebrew Union College has both male and female students in all its programs, including rabbinic and cantorial studies. Julia Ettlinger (1863–1890) became its first female student in 1875.[21][22][23] As of January 2022, it has 839 women rabbinical graduates.[24] (SeeWomen rabbis). The first female rabbi to be ordained by Hebrew Union College wasSally Priesand, ordained in 1972, the only woman in a class with 35 men.[25] The first female cantor to be invested by Hebrew Union College wasBarbara Ostfeld in 1975.[26]
After four years of deliberation, Hebrew Union College decided to give women a choice of wording on their ordination certificates beginning in 2016, including the option to have the same wording as men.[27] Up until then, male candidates' certificates identified them by the Reform movement's traditional "morenu harav," or "our teacher the rabbi," while female candidates' certificates only used the term "rav u’morah," or "rabbi and teacher." Sally Priesand herself was unaware that her certificate referred to her any differently than her male colleagues until it was brought to her attention years later. Rabbi Mary Zamore, executive director of the Reform movement'sWomen's Rabbinic Network, explained that the Hebrew Union College was uncomfortable with giving women the same title as men. In 2012 she wrote to Rabbi David Ellenson, Hebrew Union College's then president, requesting that he address the discrepancy, which she said was "smacking of gender inequality."[27]
In 2021, following new reports about sexual abuse by former Hebrew Union College presidentSheldon Zimmerman and recently deceased professor Michael Cook, three separate Reform organizations began internal investigations ofsexual harassment and other forms ofdiscrimination.[28] Hebrew Union College retained the law firmMorgan Lewis, who conducted 170 interviews addressing incidents beginning in the 1970s. The report described the culture at the school's campuses as a "good old boys" mindset demonstrating favoritism towardscisgender men, particularly at the Cincinnati and Jerusalem campuses. It found that students and administration were reluctant to confront professors over repeated incidents of harassment and discrimination, as many of the perpetrators are or were revered scholars in their field, and complaints were often swept under the rug. Former professorsSteven M. Cohen,Michael Cook, andStephen Passamaneck, Director of Litiurgical Arts and MusicBonia Shur, and former presidentsAlfred Gottschalk and Sheldon Zimmerman were reported to be the subject of repeated credible allegations of sexual harassment. The report recommended renaming or removingendowed chairs, scholarships, statues, and buildings that honor the wrongdoers. The school's current president and board both stated that they would maketeshuvah (repent), work to prevent such incidents, and revise policies for handlingmisconduct complaints.[29]
Hebrew Union College is undertaking a multi-year teshuvah process to strengthen a sacred and respectful community aligned with its highest Jewish values. As part of this effort, Hebrew Union College has implemented a holistic plan of strategic and operational change to rebuild trust, promote healing, and ensure a safe, equitable, and values-driven institutional culture.
The process began in 2020 with the convening of the Presidential Task Force on Safe and Respectful Environments and continued after the 2021 release of the Morgan Lewis investigation report.
Key initiatives include facilitated listening circles, reissuance of graduation documents, reaffirmation of ordination ceremonies, communications that elevate the experience of impacted parties, and quarterly updates that share progress with the Hebrew Union College community.
The Hebrew Union College library system contains one of the most extensive Jewish collections in the world. Each campus has its own library:
The three U.S. campuses share a catalog, but the Jerusalem collection is separately cataloged.
Hebrew Union College operatesHebrew Union College Press, auniversity press, through which it releases Jewish Studies-related publications.[31] It also issues a yearbook of studies titledHebrew Union College Annual, published since 1924.
The Dr. Bernard Heller Museum at Hebrew Union College in New York presents exhibitions highlightingJewish history, culture, and contemporary creativity.[32]
Since its founding in 1983 as the Joseph Gallery, the museum has grown physically to encompass 5,000 square feet (460 m2) of exhibition space, expanding to include the Petrie Great Hall, Klingenstein Gallery, Heller Gallery and Backman Gallery.[citation needed]
The Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles originally housed The Skirball Museum. The museum collection moved to theSkirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles when the Center opened in 1996. The Skirball Cultural Center is independent of Hebrew Union College, however, both organizations continue to collaborate on select programs and exhibitions.
The Hebrew Union College also manages theSkirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles and Skirball Museum in Jerusalem.[citation needed]
The Jewish Language Project (JLP), run by ProfessorSarah Bunin Benor at Hebrew Union College, is a research program dedicated to the preservation of Jewish diasporic languages. The project also seeks to raise awareness among Jewish communities about Jewish languages around the world, both those that are endangered and those that are emerging. The JLP was launched in 2020 and its activities include convening organizations and scholars to document endangered Jewish languages and created collaborative dictionaries for emerging Jewish languages. JLP's initiatives include the creation of a comprehensive resource on Jewish languages in the form of a series on online dictionaries, with information on over 30 different languages, including their history, grammar, vocabulary, and cultural significance. Most prominent is theJewish English Lexicon, an online dictionary of words derived from various Jewish languages that Jews use when they are speaking English. Other initiatives concern endangered Jewish languages and feature documentation to preserve terms and phrases.[33][34]
A related project is theComprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, an online dictionary and text database of differentAramaic varieties.[35][36]
Notable faculty members have includedRabbi Judah Magnes, who was also the founding chancellor and president of Hebrew University of Jerusalem RabbiIsrael Bettan,Rabbi Abraham Cronbach,Rabbi Tamara Cohn Eskenazi,Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,Rabbi Leo Baeck,Gerald Bubis,Rabbi Nelson Glueck,Moses Buttenweiser,Eugene Borowitz,Jacob Z. Lauterbach,Jacob Mann,Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, RabbiLouis Grossmann,Rabbi Moses Mielziner,Rabbi Julian Morgenstern, RabbiAlvin J. Reines,Steven Windmueller,Debbie Friedman,Rachel Adler, Sivan Zakai, Rabbi Wendy Zierler, Rabbi Michael Marmur andCarole B. Balin, as well asSami Rohr Choicie Award for Jewish Literature andNational Jewish Book Award recipientSarah Bunin Benor.[37][38]
 | This article's list of alumnimay not follow Wikipedia'sverifiability policy. Pleaseimprove this article by removing names that do not have independentreliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this articleand are alumni, or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriatecitations.(June 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
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