In a move likely to buttress Jewish life on the West Coast, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s Los Angeles campus will begin ordaining Reform rabbis.
The expansion of the school’s rabbinic training program puts the Los Angeles campus on a par with HUC’s three other campuses — in Jerusalem, Cincinnati and New York. Students are currently ordained at the latter two locations.
“This is a decision of monumental import to the entire West Coast Jewish community,” said Rabbi Michael Berk, regional director of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the congregational arm of Reform Judaism. “It recognizes the growth and significance of West Coast Jewry.”
The Conservative movement’s University of Judaism in Los Angeles began ordaining rabbis in 1996, becoming the first full-fledged rabbinical school west of the Mississippi.
Reform rabbinical students currently spend five years in school. The first year is spent studying in Jerusalem.
On returning to this country, students can choose to spend the next two years at HUC-JIR’s Los Angeles, Cincinnati or New York campus. Until now, they could only do years two and three in Los Angeles before packing up and moving on in order to complete the final two years of their studies.
The new policy will allow students in Los Angeles to stay put, though the HUC-JIR has not yet determined when the change will go into effect, said Corey Slavin, assistant director of development at the school.
Regardless of how long it takes to implement, school officials and students believe the change eventually will bring more rabbinic students to Southern California.
“More students might come here if they knew they wouldn’t have to move three times in five years,” said third-year rabbinical student Melissa Fogel, 26, in aphone interview.
“Above all else, this will lend a level of convenience that the L.A. students didn’t have prior to this decision,” she added. “The students are extremely excited, especially those of us who would really like to stay in L.A. I count myself among those students.”
Fogel, a third-year student, will remain in Los Angeles for another year to complete a master’s degree in Jewish education. If L.A. ordination has not yet been instituted by the time she completes that degree, she expects to finish her studies in New York.
“It’s better for me to plan on leaving and then be pleasantly surprised,” she said.
In addition to broadening rabbinical students’ options, the expansion could have implications for Reform synagogues and schools in the West.
“Rabbinical students reach and touch a lot of congregations,” Berk said, “and there are more congregations that seek the kind of help that student rabbis provide than there are student rabbis to provide them right now.”
Founded in 1875, HUC-JIR is the nation’s oldest institution of higher Jewish education. In 1954, the school established its Los Angeles campus, which now includes schools of communal service, education and Judaic studies.
The Cincinnati and New York campuses last year ordained 67 rabbis, who joined 1,700 Reform rabbis already active in North America. There are currently 875 Reform congregations in the United States with an estimated membership of 1.5 million.
HUC-JIR’s board of governors, composed of communal and civic leaders, alumni and Reform leaders, unanimously approved the proposal to expand the Los Angeles rabbinical program last month.
In announcing its decision, the governing board noted “the burgeoning significance of the Reform movement in the Western states and the growing number of West Coast Reform congregations and schools seeking professional and spiritual leadership.”
Getting the ordination program on its feet in Los Angeles will require more than just shuffling faculty around.
“It’s a matter of building the program, building the faculty,” Berk pointed out. “It’s not something that happens overnight.”