At Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, rabbinical students typically pray together and practice leading services as a part of their studies. They pore over Jewish texts in groups of two, a practice called chevruta, and in courses for up to five years.
But for a cohort of students starting in January, rabbinical school is going to look a little different. They’ll still participate in those same activities, but instead of gathering in person, they’ll meet online.
College leaders hope the virtual option, which launched this month with a cohort of 10, will reach a new group of students and provide a boost to its bottom line. HUC-JIR, a Jewish graduate education institution for Judaism’s Reform movement, has faced enrollment and financial troubles in recent years, leading to controversial cuts to its in-person programs and other belt-tightening measures. The new pathway comes at a time when liberal rabbinical schools are struggling to attract and train enough would-be rabbis and online rabbinical programs are growing more prevalent.
HUC-JIR currently has about 132 rabbinical students across its campuses in Jerusalem, Los Angeles and New York and its soon to be shuttered rabbinical program in Cincinnati, slated to close after the 2025–26 academic year. Over the last 15 years, rabbinical student enrollment plummeted by 37 percent, according to college data. Over all, 240 students were enrolled this fall, down from 250 last fall and 293 the year before that, according to the HUC-JIR Office of Assessment, Institutional Research, and Compliance.
Andrew Rehfeld, president of HUC-JIR, said the virtual pathway aims to serve aspiring rabbis at a time when people are increasingly used to learning and working online. He hopes the program will draw students living in areas without HUC-JIR campuses who can’t move because of family or other responsibilities and people interested in becoming rabbis as a second career.
“We need to be responsive to a modern world … a world that looks different than it did even five or 10 or 20 years ago,” Rehfeld said. Otherwise, “we won’t be able to retain the role that we have of delivering Jewish leaders for the entire Jewish world … This allows us to raise up rabbis and new leadership for all of North America, no matter where we happen to have campuses.”
Rehfeld said HUC-JIR isn’t unique in its challenges as enrollment drops at liberal rabbinical schools and other religious institutions that train clergy. The Jewish Theological Seminary, an intellectual hub of the Conservative movement, reported that in 2007, five prominent liberal rabbinical schools in the U.S., including JTS, collectively enrolled 100 incoming rabbinical students; by 2022, that number plummeted to just 52. Rehfeld said enrollment challenges continue, but he’s hopeful HUC-JIR can buck trends with the help of the new virtual rabbinical pathway and other initiatives.
A New Pathway Emerges
Plans for a virtual program were announced in 2022 after HUC-JIR shared it would shut down its 150-year-old, in-person rabbinical program in Cincinnati. That decision, which college leaders said was necessary to shore up their finances, shocked students, professors and alumni and sparked ongoing, heated debates about the academic direction of the college. The college has since decided to close the rest of the graduate programs on the Cincinnati campus, though academic resources like its archives and library will remain.
HUC-JIR would create “a new academically rigorous flexible residency clergy program to open up the rabbinate and cantorate to students who cannot relocate to a campus city,” read an update from the college in April 2022.
The new approach came after the college operated at an average structural deficit of about $1.5 million a year from 2010 to 2020, according to the update. The operating deficit grew to nearly $4 million in 2021. College leaders projected an $8.8 million shortfall in 2022 if they kept the Cincinnati rabbinical program running. The college set a goal to reach a balanced budget by 2029.
Rehfeld said the virtual pathway is a part of retaining the college’s prestige and securing its future. Even if the virtual program cost as much as the residential program did, the question on his mind is what kind of rabbinical program is going to draw students. He believes the virtual program has a better chance of that.
“One is attracting students—people want to come—and the other, there aren’t the student numbers,” he said.
Although the college’s finances remain shaky and the deficit continues, some are still reluctant to let go of the college’s decision to close brick-and-mortar programs.
Rabbi Gary Zola, who retired this year from his role as the Edward M. Ackerman Family Distinguished Professor of the American Jewish Experience and Reform Jewish History at HUC-JIR, worries the college’s on-campus academic resources—such as the Klau Library in Cincinnati, known for its impressive collection of rare Jewish books—will languish in the absence of in-pereson HUC-JIR scholars and students. (The virtual program requires students to start their studies with a three-day gathering on the Cincinnati campus.)
“The stature of our institution, of any academic institution, is based on its academic resources,” said Zola, also executive director emeritus of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives. “It seems apparent, it seems unquestionable, that a decision was made to jettison those major institutions which have been built up and treasured.”
Looking Toward the Future
To develop the new virtual pathway, HUC-JIR professors and rabbinical leaders had to rethink how they do “clergy formation,” producing not just graduates but spiritual leaders in an online environment, said Rabbi Andrea Weiss, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost and associate professor of Bible at HUC-JIR.
“How do you turn students into rabbis and cantors?” she said. “That happens in the class, outside of the class; that depends on the relationships that you develop with our faculty, who are really committed to nurturing students and the growth that happens when you enter the program to when you leave. So how does that take place online?”
She found those questions posed a significant “challenge.” But she and other faculty members have come up with a structure they’re proud of and plan to tweak and refine over the years. The program is expected to take students between three to five years and costs $14,250 per semester.
The program starts with a three-day, in-person program at the Cincinnati campus. Then students gather online for synchronous classes two days per week, alongside asynchronous courses and chevruta study they can schedule flexibly.
Students will still participate in prayer services together, either by virtually joining services held on other campuses or leading prayer at synagogues in their local communities and reflecting with classmates about their experiences.
A growing number of online rabbinical school options have cropped up over the years, within and outside of traditional Jewish denominations. ALEPH, a rabbinical program affiliated with the Jewish Renewal movement, has an all-online program with some required in-person gatherings. Orthodox online programs, like Machon Lehoraa Online Smicha or Machon Smicha, offer rabbinical ordination in as little as a year. Other pluralistic or “trans-denominational” options run entirely online as well, like the Jewish Spiritual Leaders Institute.
Zola said some of these programs have meaningful standards, while others make him wary. (One multifaith site, for example, promises quick ordination certificates for faith leaders of various religions, including rabbis, for a mere $150.) He believes plenty of people can benefit from the flexibility of well-crafted online rabbinical programs, but he also worries the rabbis emerging from lesser online options won’t have the tools to lead communities well.
“We’re going to have an increase in the number of people in our community who are not capable of reading the texts in their original language, who are not capable of speaking Hebrew, who are not capable of handling the co-curricular responsibility of the Rabbinate,” Zola said.
For that reason, unlike HUC-JIR’s other rabbinical offerings, the inaugural cohort of virtual students are required to already have graduate degrees in Jewish studies or other related fields and high Hebrew proficiency. Rehfeld said that’s to help ensure the launch of a high-quality online program.
“We’re much more concerned about admissions for a virtual program, because it’s the first time we’re doing it,” he said, “and we want to ensure … not a weakening of standards, but a strengthening and leading [of] them.”
Rehfeld believes not offering an online rabbinical school option would be a disservice to Jewish communities.
“We recognize that we have to meet people where they are if we’re going to have a hope of understanding how we’re going to meet the need for Jewish leaders in the future,” he said.
