In July 2022, when Jewfolk, Inc., received a major grant from the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati to create Cincy Jewfolk, I may have been a little too excited.
All I could think was, this dumb almost-25-year-old Jewish journalist is getting to be part of launching a whole new local news project!
As I brainstormed what we could cover, one story seemed an obvious choice: Following up on the April 2022 vote by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to close its historic Cincinnati rabbinical school.
I wrote in Google Docs then: “Spotlight has gone away since the vote happened to reduce the campus presence, but there are more stories to tell.” I put that under the category of “basic coverage.”
But as I started meeting with Cincinnati Jews and asking them about HUC-JIR, it became clear that this story was anything but basic.
Some were enraged at the college and its administration for the push to close the rabbinical school here. Others were simply tired and wanting to move on after the heated debate and intense media cycle leading up to the April vote. But amid varying reactions, there was a throughline of confusion and a feeling of having been gaslit.
No one seemed to understand how or why, exactly, HUC-JIR had come to make this decision – or what would now happen to the Cincinnati campus, a fixture of the community for generations. The administration had vague ideas about turning the campus into a research center, but otherwise, what might become of the 76-year-old Pines School of Graduate Studies, the Klau Library, the Skirball Museum, and the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives?
As a reporter, my role seemed clear. At its best, journalism can shine a light in the darkness, bring clarity and resolution to hurt communities, and hold those in power accountable for their actions. I’m not naive enough to think we journalists always reach those lofty goals – but as a Jew, I felt a responsibility to not shirk away from this work just because I might fail.
If I was going to try and serve this community, revisiting the story of HUC-JIR in Cincinnati was essential.
So here we are, nearly two years and over 17,000 words later, as Cincy Jewfolk publishes “How To Close A Campus: HUC-JIR Bleeds Money While Cincinnati Pays The Price.”
The story traces the college’s decline, and is in some ways a tale of contrasts. During the Great Recession, HUC-JIR decided against closing a campus and went on to have record fundraising during the 2010s. From 2015-2019, public audits show the college regularly brought in between $15 million to $20 million annually in cash from contributions.
But under the administration of President Andrew Rehfeld, who came on in 2019, the college’s fundraising cratered. In fiscal year 2023, HUC-JIR brought in just $5.2 million in cash from contributions – a roughly 70% decline from before the pandemic.
That same administration proposed the closing of the Cincinnati rabbinical school in a way that students, alumni, and former faculty say was, at best, misleading, and at worst, outright lying to get its way.
“Students, faculty, myself included…asked on more occasions than I could count, of members of the national administration, if there was any intention of closing the Cincinnati campus,” said Rabbi Ari Jun, an alum of the Cincinnati rabbinical school. “The response we were given, time and time again, was ‘no.’
“And I can’t understand that answer, combined with the circumstances that existed, as anything other than willfully misleading folks who are stakeholders in the process,” he said. “Because everybody who [asked the administration] meant ‘closing the Cincinnati campus’ as ‘shutting down its programs.’”
To Cincinnati stakeholders, that kind of misleading approach continues to be a hallmark of this administration.
In early 2024, Yoram Bitton, HUC-JIR’s national director of libraries, resigned after allegedly being pressured by the administration to sell rare books from the Klau Library, one of the premiere Jewish libraries in the world.
Internally, to all faculty and alumni, President Rehfeld denied that the college planned to sell rare items from the Klau. He said the college was just engaging “an independent consultant…to understand the value of our holdings.”
But in mid-March, the “independent consultant” that came to evaluate the Klau holdings was Sharon Liberman Mintz, the international senior specialist in Judaica for the auction house Sotheby’s – again sparking fear that rare items will be sold.
HUC-JIR did not respond directly to over 70 questions I sent them about my reporting, with President Rehfeld and board chair David Edelson instead releasing a joint statement that did not deny any details in the published article.
There is much, much more to this story, and to the college as it has been shaped by President Rehfeld, who – despite the institution’s struggling finances and its alienation of Cincinnati donors and alumni – had his contract renewed through 2029 by the HUC-JIR Board of Governors.
Rehfeld, at one point, complained to HUC-JIR’s office of recruitment and admissions for there being too many women in an incoming class of rabbinical students, and in a separate instance, told the admissions team to be more elitist in its recruitment.
Students, alumni, and former faculty now describe the Cincinnati campus as being hollowed out, with the community exhausted while HUC-JIR offers little substantial detail, in public or private, to explain how the institution will sustain 3101 Clifton Ave amid buyouts, budget cuts, and the closure of the graduate school.
“I felt, and still feel, the worst for our professors and staff who have had to bear the brunt of this, who have had to support us through this…whose life work is going out the window,” said an alum of the Cincinnati rabbinical school, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.
You can read the full story here. And if you find it meaningful, relevant, and important reporting, consider supporting Cincy Jewfolk with a donation or by subscribing to our newsletter. Everything we publish is free to read and doesn’t require an account or a paywall – but the reporting itself, and the time necessary for this kind of story, isn’t free.
– Lev Gringauz, Cincy Jewfolk associate editor
Yishar Koach
Thank you from the bottom of so many Jewish hearts for writing this article. Very well written.