Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
| Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion | |
|---|---|
| Established | 1875 |
| Type | Private |
| President | Rabbi David Ellenson |
| Location | Cincinnati, New York City, Los Angeles, Jerusalem |
| Affiliations | Reform Judaism |
| Website | www.huc.edu |
The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (also known as HUC, HUC-JIR, and The College-Institute) is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas[1] and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism.
HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, New York, Los Angeles and Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem campus is the only seminary in Israel for training Reform Jewish clergy.
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[edit] History
HUC was founded in 1875 under the leadership of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise in Cincinnati, Ohio. The first rabbinical class graduated in 1883.[2] The graduation banquet for this class included food that was not kosher, such as clams, soft-shell crabs, shrimp, frogs' legs and dairy products served immediately after meat. This feast was known as the treifah banquet. 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 were compelled to find an alternative between Reform Judaism and Orthodox Judaism. This was a major cause of the founding of American Conservative Judaism.[2]
In 1950, a second HUC campus was created in New York City through a merger with the rival Reform Jewish Institute of Religion. Additional campuses were added in Los Angeles, California in 1954, and in Jerusalem in 1963.[3]
As of 2009, the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is an international seminary and university of graduate studies 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 Communal Service, sacred music, Biblical archaeology and an Israeli rabbinical program.[4]
The Los Angeles campus operates many of its programs and degrees in cooperation with the neighboring University of Southern California, a partnership that has lasted over 35 years.[5] Their productive relationship includes the creation of The Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement[6] which is a inter-faith think tank through the partnership of HUC, USC and Omar Foundation. CMJE[7] 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 woman Rabbi in the United States, as well as the investiture of reform Judaism's first woman hazzan and the ordination of Naamah Kelman as the first woman rabbi in Israel.[8]
[edit] Notable faculty
Notable faculty members have included Judah Magnes, who was also the founding chancellor and president of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Nelson Glueck, Moses Buttenweiser, Eugene Borowitz, Jacob Z. Lauterbach, Lawrence A. Hoffman, Steven M. Cohen, Moses Mielziner, and Debbie Friedman.
[edit] Notable graduates
- Cody Bahir, scholar of Jewish and Chinese Mysticism[9]
- Alysa Stanton, first Black female rabbi
- Jonathan Rosenbaum (scholar)
- A. James Rudin
- Ruth Langer
- David Williams, director of the University of Georgia Honors Program
- Seymour Schwartzman, opera singer and cantor
- Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism
- Jay Holstein, Notable Professor from University of Iowa
[edit] The School of Sacred Music
The School of Sacred Music of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion was founded in 1947. The SSM is located on the New York campus of HUC-JIR at One West Fourth Street. The SSM offers a five-year graduate program, conferring the degree of Master of Sacred Music in the fourth year and investiture as cantor in the fifth year.
Cantorial School at HUC-JIR 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, President of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, announced on January 27, 2011 that The School of Sacred Music will henceforth be called The Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music.[10]
[edit] Gender equality and HUC
In keeping with the tradition of gender equality in Reform Judaism, HUC has both male and female students in all its programs, including rabbinic and cantorial studies. Since its founding, the College-Institute has ordained over 2,800 rabbis and over 400 cantors. As of 2007, 520 ordained rabbis and 179 invested cantors have been women.[11] (See Women and the rabbinical credential). The first female rabbi to be ordained by HUC was Sally Priesand, ordained in 1972 [1]. The first female cantor to be invested by HUC was Barbara Ostfeld-Horowitz in 1975 [2].
[edit] Resources
The HUC library system contains one of the most extensive Jewish collections in the world with close to a million volumes on the four campuses. The collection includes 150 incunabula (the earliest printed books), more than 2,000 manuscript codices, and many thousands of pages of archival documents. Special collections include Jewish Americana, music, an outstanding Spinoza collection, and extensive microforms. It also houses the American Jewish Periodical Center, which preserves American Jewish periodicals and newspapers on microfilm.
The three U.S. campuses share a catalog The Jerusalem catalog is separate.
[edit] Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum
The HUC-JIR Museum at the New York campus presents exhibitions highlighting Jewish history, culture, and contemporary creativity.[12]
Since its founding in 1983 as the Joseph Gallery, the HUC-JIR 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. Amongst the exhibitions presented to date, the Museum has mounted seminal shows for emerging artists, surveys of leading mid-career and elder artists; cutting-edge exhibitions illuminating Jewish issues, including contemporary artistic responses to the Holocaust, the history of African-American and Jewish relations since 1654 to the present, the impact of family violence on the works of contemporary Israeli and American women artists, and the current situation in Israel and contemporary Israeli identity; landmark exhibitions establishing new directions for contemporary Jewish ceremonial art; group exhibitions reflecting new interpretations of Biblical text; and exhibitions of significant private collections, reflecting Jewish identity and consciousness, which have advanced the definition of Jewish art in the 20th century.
Laura Kruger is the Curator of Museum Exhibition at the HUC-JIR Museum.
The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion also manages the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles and Skirball Museum in Jerusalem.
[edit] References
- ^ Sussman, Lance (2005). "The Myth of the Trefa Banquet: American Culinary Culture and the Radicalization of Food Policy in American Reform Judaism". The American Jewish Archives Journal (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion) 57 (1-2): 29–52. ISSN 002-905X. http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:x_V5EjJ-yvcJ:www.americanjewisharchives.org/journal/PDF/2005AjajFinal%2520(2).pdf+trefa+banquet+menu&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShBNZxW1CEIluE1TpDp1GHcdRSzW8Yi08LYRTJ8hXB7tOduUANDmEBkDZRCKngx8Zka0ZChxpbCmAY4IjB2Pm8rMMk7dijgX2jgYu3iu_itkI5XkIxayj8kBbLDjVgLXj7EawOp&sig=AHIEtbR8uCQGM4s4ExpgSTZIvuATnSedcw. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- ^ a b Jewish Life in America
- ^ Hebrew Union College History
- ^ Hebrew Union College Academics
- ^ Hebrew Union College: University of Southern California
- ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Muslim-Jewish_Engagement
- ^ http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/
- ^ Martin, Douglas. "Alfred Gottschalk, 79, Scholar of Reform Judaism, Is Dead", The New York Times, September 15, 2009. Accessed September 16, 2009.
- ^ http://ciis.academia.edu/CodyBahir
- ^ http://www.huc.edu/newspubs/pressroom/article.php?pressroomid=1558
- ^ Hebrew Union College Statistics
- ^ Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion: About, ARTINFO, 2008, http://www.artinfo.com/galleryguide/22136/8654/about/hebrew-union-college-jewish-institute-of-religion-new-york/, retrieved 2008-07-28[dead link]
[edit] External links
- Hebrew Union College Website
- Central Conference of American Rabbis Website
- The Union for Reform Judaism Website
- Reform Judaism Magazine Home Page
