Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion

HUC Greenwich Village , New York Hebrew Union College was founded in Cincinnati in 1875 under the leadership of Rabbi Isaac 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 the Trefa Banquet because it included food that was not kosher , such as clams , soft-shell crabs , shrimp , frogs' legs and dairy products served immediately after meat. At the time, Reform rabbis 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 and Orthodox Judaism which led to the founding of American Conservative Judaism . [ 4 ] In 1950, Hebrew Union College gained a second campus when it merged with the rival Reform Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. The Jewish Institute of Religion was previously affiliated with the Stephen 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 in Greenwich Village . The Jewish Association for Services for the Aged took over the building until 1997, when the Ramaz School , in an expansion deal for itself and York 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 the First 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, and sacred music , a program in Biblical archaeology and an Israeli rabbinical program . [ 9 ] The Los Angeles campus runs many of its programs and degrees in cooperation with the neighboring University of Southern California . [ 10 ] Their 50-year collaboration includes the creation of the Center 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. Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk was appointed as Hebrew Union College's sixth president, following the death of Nelson Glueck . As president, Gottschalk oversaw the growth and expansion of the Hebrew Union College campuses, the ordination of Sally Priesand as the first female rabbi in the United States, the investiture of Reform Judaism's first female hazzan and the ordination of Naamah Kelman as the first female rabbi to be ordained in Israel. [ 12 ] In 1996, Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman was appointed as the 7th President of Hebrew Union College. He was succeeded in 2000 by Rabbi David Ellenson as the 8th President. The 9th president of Hebrew Union College, elected in 2014, was Rabbi Aaron D. Panken , Ph.D. A noted authority on rabbinic and Second 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 over New York 's Hudson 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 a nonbinary 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 of Debbie Friedman . The renaming officially occurred on December 7, 2011. [ 19 ] [ 20 ]