Editor’s note: This story has been updated with an internal email from HUC-JIR President Andrew Rehfeld.
In legal action sparked by Cincy Jewfolk’s reporting on the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced today he is seeking a temporary restraining order to stop the college from selling rare items from the Cincinnati Klau Library.
The filing also seeks to permanently stop any sales unless proceeds are guaranteed to be reinvested into the Klau Library.
“A library without its most precious artifacts and texts is like a body without a soul,” said Yost in a press release. “We are committed to ensuring that these irreplaceable items remain available to the public and are cared for as their donors intended.”
The filing claims HUC-JIR has mishandled the Klau Library on six counts violating Ohio law, including deceptive acts or practices in charitable solicitations, breach of fiduciary duty, and abuse of charitable trust.
The counts are mostly to do with the college continuing to solicit donations for the library while cutting budgets and moving to sell rare items.
“The College has manifested, by its solicitations, accounting, and other statements, an intent to hold the property of and for the Cincinnati Library exclusively for charitable, educational, and religious purposes, including to benefit the local community and the worldwide community of scholars,” states the motion for the temporary restraining order.
“By secretly taking steps to sell or deaccession collection items, including potentially irreplaceable Special Collection and Rare Book items, as well as by cutting funds and preventing fundraising, and by simultaneously soliciting funds to support the Cincinnati Library, the College has failed to live up to its fiduciary responsibilities.”
HUC-JIR’s President Andrew Rehfeld sent an email to staff, faculty, and students – obtained by Cincy Jewfolk – to reassure them about the legal action.
“Our counsel came to an agreement with the Attorney General’s Office on this matter because we have no plans to sell our rare books,” Rehfeld wrote. “The rumors that we are planning to sell our rare books, and the subsequent legal and press attention, are based on incomplete and misleading information…We have no plans to sell or ‘deaccession’ the collection and no staff member has been asked to sell our books.”
Rehfeld also shared the statement HUC-JIR has been giving to media: “HUC-JIR is focused on preserving our collections and increasing scholarly access to them…we remain committed to responsible management of the Klau Library and its critical role in the study of Judaism, Jewish history, and Jewish civilization.”
The Klau is HUC-JIR’s primary research library, known for its substantial collections on the traditions, history, and philosophy of world Jewry across more than a dozen languages – including Chinese, Spanish, and Portuguese – and a renowned assembly of Jewish liturgical music.
The attorney general’s case is largely built around Cincy Jewfolk’s April reporting – which is referenced and quoted from extensively in the filings – about HUC-JIR’s efforts to sell rare items from the Klau, and the college administration’s budget cuts at the library.
While no sales have taken place, and the college says it currently has no plans for any sales, HUC-JIR did bring Judaica specialists from the auction house Sotheby’s to evaluate the Klau Library holdings in mid-March.
Earlier in 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.
In April, HUC-JIR did not respond directly to Cincy Jewfolk questions about Sotheby’s evaluating the Klau holdings, and the college did not deny that it might sell rare items from the Klau Library.
“Some elements of [HUC-JIR’s] institutional evolution, including academic program and library collection evaluation, are best practices at responsible institutions, but which had not previously been done,” the college said in its statement.
Following up on the Sotheby’s connection, the attorney general’s office requested a variety of records from HUC-JIR ranging from any contracts with Sotheby’s to board minutes or other records of discussions about selling from the Klau.
The office received a copy of the independent contractor agreement between HUC-JIR and Sharon Liberman Mintz, the international senior specialist in Judaica at Sotheby’s, stating she would be paid $16,000 plus travel and other expenses to evaluate the Klau.
The only other document HUC-JIR sent was a letter from Mintz to Joshua Holo, HUC-JIR’s vice president of academic resources who oversees the Klau Library. In the letter, Mintz offered to “provide a connection to the Sotheby’s Communications team who will collaborate with HUC to craft the most appropriate messaging for the plans that HUC chooses to pursue.”
The college has no formal deaccessioning policy, but its public audits state that “proceeds from the sale of collection items are required to be used to acquire other collection items.”
Among Cincinnati stakeholders – especially given Bitton’s resignation and the college’s financial troubles – there is little trust that HUC-JIR would sell rare items for the sake of the Klau, or that its deaccessioning process would be an ethical one. Internally, the administration is reportedly talking about selling rare books as a necessary financial move to save the college from its crippling deficits.
It seems the Office of the Ohio Attorney General has similar concerns.
After Cincy Jewfolk’s April story, the office contacted HUC-JIR “seeking an immediate, verified assurance” that all proceeds from Klau sales would be reinvested into the library, and not used to cover the college’s finances.
“The college did not provide the requested assurance,” the office states in its filing.
In emails with the attorney general’s office, included as exhibits in the filing, Martha Sweterlitsch, HUC-JIR’s attorney, reiterated that HUC-JIR has no current plans to sell from the Klau, but the college does need to manage its holdings despite outcry from the Cincinnati community.
Alluding to potential sales, Sweterlitsch wrote: “We are completely aware that, as soon as news of any such agreement, or instructions on how to implement it, leaks (as it inevitably will as past events demonstrate), the actors in Cincinnati who are stuck in the past and whose goal is to stop time with respect to HUC will raise a breach claim over any and every book that is discarded regardless of reason. Quite frankly, my client does not need, or have time for that kind of distraction.”
