A representative for HUC said the school \u201cis responding to the Ohio attorney general\u2019s unwarranted lawsuit and will respond appropriately to any additional filings.\u201d A representative for Yost declined to comment, citing pending litigation.<\/p>\n
HUC has previously criticized the state\u2019s lawsuit against it and is fighting to retain its assets. The school\u2019s president, Andrew Rehfeld, has said the allegations \u201cmischaracterize our decision-making, misrepresent our stewardship of donor funds and ignore our sustained record of transparency and good faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t The College for Contemporary Judaism\u2019s request is unusual for an institution that, for now, exists in name only. The CCJ, formally founded in 2022 in response to HUC\u2019s closure, has no permanent home and has yet to enroll any students. It also lacks a set timeline for when its first class would start. HUC, meanwhile, with campuses in New York, Los Angeles and Jerusalem, has been the Reform movement\u2019s foremost seminary since its founding in Cincinnati in 1875 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise.<\/p>\n CCJ\u2019s founders, most of whom have deep associations with HUC, argue they are better positioned than any other party to carry on the mission of ordaining liberal rabbis in the Midwest. It\u2019s a cause they say HUC is abandoning, in violation of its own charter language promising to \u201cpermanently maintain\u201d a campus in Cincinnati \u2014 the same language Yost is drawing on in the state\u2019s suit against the college.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are stepping forward and saying, \u2018We are willing to undertake this role,\u2019\u201d Andrew Berger, a founder and board chair of CCJ, told JTA. Berger added that the state AG\u2019s office was \u201caware of us.\u201d<\/p>\n Berger is a former HUC board chair, while CCJ\u2019s founding president, Rabbi Gary Zola, is the former longtime executive director of HUC\u2019s archives. The school\u2019s honorary president, Rabbi Sally Priesand, was ordained at HUC as the first woman rabbi in the United States.<\/p>\n \t Such deep connections to HUC make their participation in a lawsuit against the seminary \u201cvery difficult,\u201d Berger said. He said the school had angered many when it pulled out of Cincinnati, which he argued was \u201ca completely unnecessary decision.\u201d (HUC has cited financial struggles, while its opponents argue that the move didn\u2019t result in major cost savings.)<\/p>\n Critics of the move have also accused HUC of abandoning Jews in the Midwest, South and Mountain West, regions where its Cincinnati graduates would often find work. The school also sparked blowback and earlier attention from AG Yost by proposing a sell-off of some of its rare books.<\/p>\n Other graduates and staff have argued the move makes sense as the school focuses on its New York and Los Angeles campuses, which were established in the 1950s and \u201960s following the college\u2019s merger with the Jewish Institute of Religion. Before the closure decision, HUC said enrollment at the Cincinnati campus was falling far faster than at the LA and New York campuses, reflecting the preference of students to live and study at its coastal locations.<\/p>\n This month, four rabbis were ordained at the Cincinnati campus, and six students received their doctoral or master\u2019s degrees, according to HUC<\/a>. Nineteen rabbis and cantors were ordained in New York, and six rabbis were ordained in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n CCJ, its founders say, was formed in response to the void being left by HUC.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are not enough rabbis being ordained today,\u201d Berger said. \u201cWith all the rabbinical seminaries now being on the coasts, I very much fear for Jewish life in the middle of the country. It\u2019s always been a little difficult to recruit rabbis to the middle of the country, but it\u2019s going to be so much harder without a seminary here.\u201d<\/p>\n \t To make its argument for HUC\u2019s assets, CCJ is drawing on a legal term known as \u201ccy pres,\u201d which permits charitable assets reclaimed by a court to be redistributed to a different nonprofit with a similar mission. Yost\u2019s lawsuit, which he filed last month, asks the court to redistribute ownership of HUC\u2019s campus and other assets to a different, unspecified \u201cpermanent\u201d rabbinical seminary in Cincinnati.<\/p>\n CCJ, which bills itself as a nondenominational \u201cschool for Liberal Judaism,\u201d wants to be that home. Its ordination procedures will be administered by the school itself, rather than any particular movement.<\/p>\n Though Berger said the school has not yet held direct conversations with movement leaders, he noted that, due to a general shortage of clergy, many liberal congregations today are hiring rabbis with nontraditional ordinations.<\/p>\n While HUC leaders sometimes spoke of their struggles to fill Cincinnati\u2019s classrooms, CCJ is confident it can recruit its own student body.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been approached by a number of prospective students who have said to us, \u2018We would love to come to your school,\u2019\u201d Berger said.<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tAndrew Rehfeld delivers his inaugural address as president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion at the Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati, Ohio, October 27, 2019. (Courtesy of HUC)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/AP24129754123210-e1715203897900-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tOhio Attorney General Dave Yost, photographed on November 8, 2022, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP\/Jay LaPrete)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/hebrew-union-college-rabbis-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tIllustrative: Newly ordained rabbis from Hebrew Union College\u2019s class of 2013 in Cincinnati celebrate with their ordination certificates outside the historic Plum Street Temple. (Janine Spang\/JTA)<\/p>\n
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