Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was awarded Honorary Degrees by the Hebrew Union College (1988)

Address: King David St 13, Jerusalem, 9410125, Israel
Founded: 1875
Founder: Isaac Mayer Wise
Phone: +972 2-620-3333
Type: Private
Established: 1875; 150 years ago
Affiliations: Union for Reform Judaism
Website: https://www.huc.edu/

Hebrew Union College Logo

The Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion (also known as HUC, HUC-JIR, and The College-Institute) is a Jewish seminary with three locations in the United States and one location in Jerusalem. It is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism. HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, Ohio, New York City, Los Angeles, and Jerusalem. The Jerusalem campus is the only seminary in Israel for training Reform Jewish clergy.

 

History

HUC was founded in Cincinnati in 1875 under the leadership of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise. 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. 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.

In 1950, HUC gained a second campus when it merged with the rival Reform Jewish Institute of Religion (JIR) in New York. JIR was previously affiliated with the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue next door. Additional campuses were added in Los Angeles in 1954, and in Jerusalem in 1963.

In 1979, HUC moved its New York campus from the original JIR 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. In January of 2025, the building on West 4th Street was sold to New York University for $75 million, and will leave the property by 2027, pending renovation of its new location in another building in Manhattan.

Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion is an international seminary and graduate school offering a wide variety of academic and professional programs. In addition to its Rabbinical School, the College-Institute includes Schools of Graduate Studies, Education, Jewish Non-Profit Management, sacred music, Biblical archaeology and an Israeli rabbinical program.

The Los Angeles campus runs many of its programs and degrees in cooperation with the neighboring University of Southern California. Their 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 holds religious text-study programs across Los Angeles.

Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk was appointed as HUC's sixth president, following the death of Nelson Glueck. As president, Gottschalk oversaw the growth and expansion of the HUC 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.

In 1996, Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman was appointed as the 7th President of the College-Institute. He was succeeded in 2000 by Rabbi David Ellenson as the 8th President. The 9th president of HUC-JIR, 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.

Andrew Rehfeld was elected the 10th president on December 18, 2018, and inaugurated at Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati on October 27, 2019.

On April 11, 2022, the Board of Governors at HUC voted to shutter the residential rabbinical program in Cincinnati by 2026 due to financial troubles and falling enrollment.

Also in 2022, HUC for the first time granted a certificate of ordination to a nonbinary candidate.

 

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Links

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Loveginsburg
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Loveginsburg
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/joanruthbaderginsburg

This page was created by the Independent Director of the Supreme Court of the United States, Abraham Lincoln Ginsburg. (Reference 28 U.S. Code §608 - Seal, Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression. See 37 C.F.R. 201.2(a)(3). Contact Email: i.love.ruth.bader.ginsburg@gmail.com)