Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced earlier this month that his office has reached a settlement with Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion over the potential sale of rare items from the Cincinnati Klau Library.
Yost’s action to seek a temporary restraining order against the school HUC-JIR from selling rare items in the Klau Library stemmed from reporting by Cincy Jewfolk in April 2024 that investigated the “restructuring plan” that will close HUC’s Cincinnati rabbinical school next year.
In a statement announcing the agreement, Yost’s office said the settlement “mandates greater transparency from the college and grants the Attorney General’s Office oversight to ensure that the library uses its collection of rare books to benefit the public.”
“These sacred texts were entrusted to Hebrew Union with the promise that they would be preserved for the benefit of scholars and researchers worldwide,” Yost said. “I commend the college’s leaders for renewing that pledge with this agreement.”
In an email to the HUC-JIR community, President Andrew Rehfeld said the agreement “upholds our mission to preserve and maintain access to the Klau Library rare books and manuscripts collections in service to the Jewish People, Judaism, and global academic scholarship.”
As part of the agreement, HUC will give Yost’s office a list of all items in the Special Collections and the Rare Book and Manuscript Collections, and will identify any items that are on a “donor restricted list,” which “contain a condition or restriction from the donor as to the sale, transfer, removal from Ohio, disposal of or deaccession of the item.”
The school can engage in “routine transfers” of the collections between each of the four libraries in the HUC system. However, any items in the Special Collections and the Rare Book and Manuscript Collections or on the donor-restricted list can only be sold, transferred, removed from Ohio, disposed of or deaccessioned by providing a 45-day advanced written notice to Yost.
Any proceeds from sales can be used only to obtain new collection items unless the college’s board declares an acute financial need via a two-thirds majority vote.
In seeking the temporary restraining order, Yost’s filing claimed that HUC-JIR had 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 a charitable trust.
The counts are mostly related to 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.”
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 was largely built around Cincy Jewfolk’s April 2024 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.
In his email, Rehfeld said the school had “no intent to sell the collection and took no steps to initiate the sale of any part of it.”
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. In March 2024, Judaica specialists from the auction house Sotheby’s came to the school to evaluate the Klau’s holdings.
“We periodically assess our assets as an aspect of our responsible management of these precious resources,” Rehfeld said.
“As we have stated, the College has never intended to sell nor deaccession these treasured materials and has always managed them in accordance with donor intent,” Rehfeld said. “While this litigation has posed challenges and incurred significant costs for the College, it will have been worthwhile if it leads to the restoration of trust.”
Reporting from Lev Gringauz was used in this article.
