Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is suing Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to ensure its Cincinnati assets are used to support a permanent rabbinic school in Cincinnati, despite the school’s announced plan to end the program at the end of the current school year.
HUC decided to close its rabbinical program on its historical campus in 2022 and is shuttering it in the 2025/26 school year. Yost claims that the HUC board violated its founding documents and state law in its decision.
“Hebrew Union accepted millions of dollars in donations based on a 76-year-old promise it now would like to break,” Yost said. “We’re suing to keep these assets in Cincinnati where they belong.”
HUC has not responded to emails requesting comment.
Yost claims that the HUC has diverted donations intended for the historic Cincinnati campus to its New York, Los Angeles, and Jerusalem campuses. In his filing, the AG argues that because the school redirected funds contributed specifically to the Cincinnati program, closing the campus violates Ohio’s charitable laws.
“The college diverted these donations and other assets for purposes outside of Ohio and unrelated to the existence of a Cincinnati rabbinical school,” the filing reads.
The filing insists that as attorney general, Yost, by statute, “protects charitable trusts and beneficiaries who should have benefi[t]ted from the operation of charitable trusts.”
“The [c]ollege has redirected, and there is a threat that it will continue to redirect, donations and other assets that were donated for or otherwise relate to the Cincinnati-area rabbinical school,” the filing reads.
The filing also asks the court for a detailed accounting of HUC-JIR’s Ohio-based assets, as well as for an order prohibiting the sale of the campus.
Yost’s complaint also cites the 1950 consolidation agreement between Cincinnati’s Hebrew Union College and New York City’s Institute of Jewish Religion, which led to the foundation of the current HUC-JIR. That agreement was amended in 2022; A legal provision that mandated HUC-JIR “permanently maintain rabbinical schools” in Cincinnati and New York was removed. However, there is no such provision for Los Angeles.
The complaint says HUC violated Ohio law and breached its charitable trust.
“Since that decision, the [C]ollege has also violated Ohio law and breached its charitable trust, and continues to do so, by failing to use its donations and other assets in ways that honor this charitable purpose tied to the existence of a Cincinnati rabbinical school.”
Litigious history
This is the second time Yost has sued the school.
Reporting by Cincy Jewfolk in April 2024 led to Yost seeking – and gaining – a temporary restraining order against the school in June of that year to stop HUC-JIR from selling rare items from the Cincinnati Klau Library.
“Considering [the attorney general’s] likelihood of success on the merits of its claims, likelihood of irreparable injury if immediate relief is not granted, and likelihood of harm to other parties, it is in the public interest to enter this temporary restraining order,” the judge’s filing states.
The attorney general’s case in seeking the restraining order was 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.
Yost’s office, following that reporting, 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, but “The college did not provide the requested assurance,” the office states in its filing.
In October 2025, Yost announced that his office reached a settlement with HUC-JIR over the potential sale of rare items in the Klau Library.
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’s rare books and manuscripts collections in service to the Jewish People, Judaism, and global academic scholarship.”