At Hebrew Union Faculty–Jewish Institute of Faith, rabbinical college students usually pray collectively and apply main companies as part of their research. They pore over Jewish texts in teams of two, a apply referred to as chevruta, and in programs for as much as 5 years.
However for a cohort of scholars beginning in January, rabbinical college goes to look slightly totally different. They’ll nonetheless take part in those self same actions, however as a substitute of gathering in individual, they’ll meet on-line.
Faculty leaders hope the digital choice, which launched this month with a cohort of 10, will attain a brand new group of scholars and supply a lift to its backside line. HUC-JIR, a Jewish graduate schooling establishment for Judaism’s Reform motion, has confronted enrollment and monetary troubles lately, resulting in controversial cuts to its in-person packages and different belt-tightening measures. The brand new pathway comes at a time when liberal rabbinical faculties are struggling to draw and practice sufficient would-be rabbis and on-line rabbinical packages are rising extra prevalent.
HUC-JIR presently has about 132 rabbinical college students throughout its campuses in Jerusalem, Los Angeles and New York and its quickly to be shuttered rabbinical program in Cincinnati, slated to shut after the 2025–26 educational yr. Over the past 15 years, rabbinical scholar enrollment plummeted by 37 %, in line with school knowledge. Over all, 240 college students had been enrolled this fall, down from 250 final fall and 293 the yr earlier than that, in line with the HUC-JIR Workplace of Evaluation, Institutional Analysis, and Compliance.
Andrew Rehfeld, president of HUC-JIR, mentioned the digital pathway goals to serve aspiring rabbis at a time when individuals are more and more used to studying and dealing on-line. He hopes this system will draw college students dwelling in areas with out HUC-JIR campuses who can’t transfer due to household or different obligations and other people concerned about changing into rabbis as a second profession.
“We must be aware of a contemporary world … a world that appears totally different than it did even 5 or 10 or 20 years in the past,” Rehfeld mentioned. In any other case, “we received’t have the ability to retain the position that we now have of delivering Jewish leaders for the complete Jewish world … This permits us to lift up rabbis and new management for all of North America, regardless of the place we occur to have campuses.”
Rehfeld mentioned HUC-JIR isn’t distinctive in its challenges as enrollment drops at liberal rabbinical faculties and different spiritual establishments that practice clergy. The Jewish Theological Seminary, an mental hub of the Conservative motion, reported that in 2007, 5 outstanding liberal rabbinical faculties within the U.S., together with JTS, collectively enrolled 100 incoming rabbinical college students; by 2022, that quantity plummeted to simply 52. Rehfeld mentioned enrollment challenges proceed, however he’s hopeful HUC-JIR can buck tendencies with the assistance of the brand new digital rabbinical pathway and different initiatives.
A New Pathway Emerges
Plans for a digital program had been introduced in 2022 after HUC-JIR shared it will shut down its 150-year-old, in-person rabbinical program in Cincinnati. That call, which school leaders mentioned was essential to shore up their funds, shocked college students, professors and alumni and sparked ongoing, heated debates in regards to the educational course of the faculty. The school has since determined to shut the remainder of the graduate packages on the Cincinnati campus, although educational assets like its archives and library will stay.
HUC-JIR would create “a brand new academically rigorous versatile residency clergy program to open up the rabbinate and cantorate to college students who can not relocate to a campus metropolis,” learn an replace from the faculty in April 2022.
The brand new method got here after the faculty operated at a median structural deficit of about $1.5 million a yr from 2010 to 2020, in line with the replace. The working deficit grew to just about $4 million in 2021. Faculty leaders projected an $8.8 million shortfall in 2022 in the event that they stored the Cincinnati rabbinical program operating. The school set a aim to achieve a balanced funds by 2029.
Rehfeld mentioned the digital pathway is part of retaining the faculty’s status and securing its future. Even when the digital program price as a lot because the residential program did, the query on his thoughts is what sort of rabbinical program goes to attract college students. He believes the digital program has a greater probability of that.
“One is attracting college students—individuals need to come—and the opposite, there aren’t the scholar numbers,” he mentioned.
Though the faculty’s funds stay shaky and the deficit continues, some are nonetheless reluctant to let go of the faculty’s resolution to shut brick-and-mortar packages.
Rabbi Gary Zola, who retired this yr from his position because the Edward M. Ackerman Household Distinguished Professor of the American Jewish Expertise and Reform Jewish Historical past at HUC-JIR, worries the faculty’s on-campus educational assets—such because the Klau Library in Cincinnati, identified for its spectacular assortment of uncommon Jewish books—will languish within the absence of in-pereson HUC-JIR students and college students. (The digital program requires college students to start out their research with a three-day gathering on the Cincinnati campus.)
“The stature of our establishment, of any educational establishment, is predicated on its educational assets,” mentioned Zola, additionally government director emeritus of the Jacob Rader Marcus Heart of the American Jewish Archives. “It appears obvious, it appears unquestionable, {that a} resolution was made to jettison these main establishments which have been constructed up and treasured.”
Wanting Towards the Future
To develop the brand new digital pathway, HUC-JIR professors and rabbinical leaders needed to rethink how they do “clergy formation,” producing not simply graduates however non secular leaders in a web-based setting, mentioned Rabbi Andrea Weiss, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost and affiliate professor of Bible at HUC-JIR.
“How do you flip college students into rabbis and cantors?” she mentioned. “That occurs within the class, exterior of the category; that is determined by the relationships that you just develop with our school, who’re actually dedicated to nurturing college students and the expansion that occurs whenever you enter this system to whenever you go away. So how does that happen on-line?”
She discovered these questions posed a big “problem.” However she and different school members have provide you with a construction they’re pleased with and plan to tweak and refine through the years. This system is anticipated to take college students between three to 5 years and prices $14,250 per semester.
This system begins with a three-day, in-person program on the Cincinnati campus. Then college students collect on-line for synchronous lessons two days per week, alongside asynchronous programs and chevruta research they’ll schedule flexibly.
College students will nonetheless take part in prayer companies collectively, both by nearly becoming a member of companies held on different campuses or main prayer at synagogues of their native communities and reflecting with classmates about their experiences.
A rising variety of on-line rabbinical college choices have cropped up through the years, inside and outdoors of conventional Jewish denominations. ALEPH, a rabbinical program affiliated with the Jewish Renewal motion, has an all-online program with some required in-person gatherings. Orthodox on-line packages, like Machon Lehoraa On-line Smicha or Machon Smicha, provide rabbinical ordination in as little as a yr. Different pluralistic or “trans-denominational” choices run fully on-line as properly, just like the Jewish Religious Leaders Institute.
Zola mentioned a few of these packages have significant requirements, whereas others make him cautious. (One multifaith website, for instance, guarantees fast ordination certificates for religion leaders of assorted religions, together with rabbis, for a mere $150.) He believes loads of individuals can profit from the flexibleness of well-crafted on-line rabbinical packages, however he additionally worries the rabbis rising from lesser on-line choices received’t have the instruments to steer communities properly.
“We’re going to have a rise within the variety of individuals in our group who are usually not able to studying the texts of their authentic language, who are usually not able to talking Hebrew, who are usually not able to dealing with the co-curricular accountability of the Rabbinate,” Zola mentioned.
For that motive, not like HUC-JIR’s different rabbinical choices, the inaugural cohort of digital college students are required to have already got graduate levels in Jewish research or different associated fields and excessive Hebrew proficiency. Rehfeld mentioned that’s to assist make sure the launch of a high-quality on-line program.
“We’re rather more involved about admissions for a digital program, as a result of it’s the primary time we’re doing it,” he mentioned, “and we need to guarantee … not a weakening of requirements, however a strengthening and main [of] them.”
Rehfeld believes not providing a web-based rabbinical college choice can be a disservice to Jewish communities.
“We acknowledge that we now have to fulfill individuals the place they’re if we’re going to have a hope of understanding how we’re going to fulfill the necessity for Jewish leaders sooner or later,” he mentioned.
