Hebrew Union College

I’m writing this column on May 12, exactly four days after Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati ordained its final four rabbis.

A couple of years ago, Hebrew Union College’s leadership decided to close the Graduate School and sunset the rabbinic program in Cincinnati. That decision has now become reality.

Four students in a class, of course, is not sustainable — though it dropped that low only after school leaders let it be known that they were considering closing the program.

Still, it seems somewhat ironic, and maybe a little poetic, that the final class of students to be ordained in Cincinnati was that size, because it was exactly the same size as its first class, ordained in 1883. There were four of them too.

But they weren’t merely the first ordination class in Cincinnati. They were the first rabbis ever trained in North or South America. Before 1883, all rabbis in the Americas were immigrants. Those first four rabbis — Joseph Silverman, David Philipson, Kaufmann Kohler, and Emil G. Hirsch — went on to help build the American Reform movement. Each made extraordinary contributions to forming both the intellectual framework of Reform Judaism and the institutions — especially synagogues and schools — that sustained it.

Four students began a major chapter in American Jewish history.

And four students mark its end.

And I’m proud that I stand somewhere in between, ordained at Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati on June 5, 2010. For many people outside the rabbinate, this may not feel especially personal. Most Jews do not spend much time thinking about rabbinical seminaries. Jewish life is lived elsewhere: in synagogues like Temple Kehillat Chaim, at camps like Camp Coleman or Six Points, and in our homes. But the way Jewish life has been lived in America for nearly a century and a half has been shaped by rabbis who were themselves shaped by the Jewish community of Cincinnati.

Cincinnati wasn’t simply the mailing address for the College. It was home to a Jewish community that took pride in nurturing and training students, helping to form them into rabbis. The Jewish community of Cincinnati is not exactly small, but it is by no means particularly large either. It is smaller not only than New York’s Jewish community, but also smaller than many others, including Atlanta.

And yet Cincinnati is the city that produced the American Reform movement. Not only Hebrew Union College, but also the Union for American Hebrew Congregations — now the Union for Reform Judaism — and the Central Conference of American Rabbis all began there.

I lived in Cincinnati for four years while in rabbinical school, and Jodi was born and raised there. While I was a student, we did not simply take classes at Hebrew Union College. We became part of the Jewish community around us. I taught at the Cincinnati Reform Jewish High School and at Rockdale Temple’s Hebrew School. Other classmates worked at Wise Temple, Temple Sholom, or even the Conservative Adath Israel, which, though Conservative, was led by an HUC-trained rabbi when I was there.

And the Jewish community of Cincinnati invested heavily in Hebrew Union College. While I was a student, for example, the library at Hebrew Union College was expanded thanks to the generosity of the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati. That library is the second-largest Jewish library in the world. Only the library at Hebrew University in Jerusalem is larger.

The library holds many treasures, but I have two favorites.

The first is a 16th-century printing of the Talmud from Venice, bound in pigskin leather. Why pigskin? I’m not sure it was intentional. The Jewish community of Venice at the time likely asked a local non-Jewish bookbinder to use the best leather available, and that’s what they got back. As long as the community didn’t try to eat their books, though, it was fine.

I like it because it shows that the past is not always what we expect.

My other favorite holding is a document written in cuneiform, etched into clay. The clay, not yet hardened, was held in the scribe’s hand as he wrote. So while one side has writing, the other side still bears the shape of the scribe’s hand. Holding it — and the library generously allowed people to handle it under a librarian’s supervision — was like shaking hands with someone from thousands of years ago.

But the story is not really about rare books, generous donors, or teaching positions for students. It is about how tightly the College and the Cincinnati Jewish community were woven together.

I am far from the only student who married a Cincinnati native. The dean of the rabbinical school, who had served as a congregational rabbi for twenty-five years before assuming his academic role, once said that he officiated at far more weddings as dean of the College than he ever had in congregational life. And Cincinnati, or Cincinnati-adjacent, natives often became rabbis. That was because the College regularly welcomed the wider community. I first visited the College as an undergraduate student at a program they ran for college students. Most didn’t go on to consider becoming rabbis, but some did. I also met Jodi at a program run by the College.

I was one of twelve rabbis ordained in Cincinnati in 2010. More than a quarter of my class was from Cincinnati or somewhere nearby, like Columbus or Kentucky. Most of us were from the Midwest or the South. The part of Florida where I grew up was as much South as anything else.

I wonder how many of my classmates from the Midwest, especially those from Cincinnati or nearby, would have become rabbis had the school not been located in their community? I’m not talking about the convenience of attending school close to home (or even attending school in a relatively affordable city, rather than one of the most expensive cities in the world), but rather the influence the school has in the region it is located.

What made Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati unique was not merely the campus itself. It was the ecosystem surrounding it. The whole Jewish community, it seemed, participated in turning rabbinical students into rabbis.

Students were integrated into synagogues, religious schools, camps, hospitals, Hillels, and Jewish agencies throughout the city. Congregations welcomed them onto bimahs. Families hosted them for meals and holidays. Rabbis mentored them not only professionally but personally. The relationship was mutually beneficial and often deeply meaningful.

And the influence of Cincinnati extended far beyond Ohio.

Rabbinical students regularly traveled to smaller Jewish communities throughout the Midwest and South — communities that often could not sustain full-time rabbis of their own. Students led services, taught classes, officiated lifecycle events, and built relationships. In return, they gained something equally valuable: firsthand experience serving Jews outside the major metropolitan centers of American Jewish life. For me, I served congregations in Galesburg and Quincy, Illinois as well as Portsmouth, Ohio (near West Virginia).

In many ways, that reflected the vision of Isaac Mayer Wise, who began Reform Judaism in America. He envisioned a Judaism meant not only for dense coastal enclaves, but for the whole of American Jewish life.That vision still matters.

Today, many thriving Jewish communities are located far from the historic institutional centers of American Judaism. Communities throughout the South, Southwest, and Midwest continue to grow and evolve. OurJewish cultures are often distinct — shaped by interfaith families, civic integration, geographic dispersion, and close relationships across denominational lines.

Which raises important questions about rabbinical education in the twenty-first century.

Does location matter in forming rabbis? Does community matter?

Can rabbinical formation happen primarily through remote learning and periodic residencies? What is lost when rabbinical education becomes geographically concentrated and financially inaccessible? And what kind of rabbis will American Judaism need in the years ahead?

Recently, historian Gary Zola quoted Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ description of rabbis as “stewards of Judaism’s sacred fire.” But those rabbis become rabbis somewhere, and they’re influenced by the culture and communities that shape them.

America benefits from a diverse rabbinate, including rabbis who were shaped outside of New York City.

The closing of rabbinical ordination in Cincinnati does not mark the end of Reform Judaism. Jewish history has always evolved through change and disruption. New centers emerge. Old ones fade. That is part of our story too. But it is still worth pausing to recognize what Cincinnati represented for generations. A Jewish community, neither tiny nor massive in size, but committed and dedicated. A community that became an inspiration for leaders who trained there and then tried to bring that inspiration all over the country.

Sadly, that chapter has now closed. But, we, Reform Jews all over the country, not just in New York City, will decide what goes in the next chapter. May the story we tell continue to be one of care, generosity, community, and dedication.