Message from President Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D.
Now in our 149th academic year, HUC-JIR has grown from a seminary to the largest graduate and professional school for Jewish leadership in the world. Our students and alumni strengthen diverse and changing Jewish communities by fostering Jewish education, engagement, and identity.
Our faculty’s scholarship and teaching advance the transmission of our heritage and tradition, from generation to generation. HUC-JIR drives the ideas and builds the leaders for the Jewish public sphere shaping our future.
HUC-JIR At A Glance
HUC-JIR educates leaders for service to the Reform Movement and the Jewish people worldwide as rabbis, cantors, educational leaders, nonprofit professionals, and pastoral counselors, and offers graduate programs to scholars and clergy of all faiths.
Our Programs
Paths to Leadership
Inspire, guide, and lead
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Our Students
With 400 full-time students and 800 part-time education students, graduate studies students, and undergraduate students at USC and Xavier University, HUC-JIR has the largest number and most diverse students of all Jewish seminaries in North America.
Our Faculty of Mentors
Our world-class faculty are transforming the contemporary understanding of Jewish text, pedagogy, and community building, offering nurturing mentorship, a low faculty-to-student ratio, and daily guidance and support from some of Judaism’s best minds.
Our Alumni Leading Globally
Our 4,000 active alumni lead:
- Over 1,000 North American Reform congregations and Progressive synagogues in Israel and worldwide;
- National Jewish communal organizations, Israel advocacy, philanthropic foundations, Jewish startups, Hillels, and chaplaincies
Cincinnati
The historic birthplace of HUC-JIR, established in 1875 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, founder of American Reform Judaism.
Cincinnati Campus
Jerusalem
Founded in 1963, the home for stateside/Israeli rabbinical, cantorial, education, and community programs in Israel.
Jerusalem Campus
Los Angeles
Founded in 1954 to serve the second largest Jewish population in the U.S., situated adjacent to USC since 1971.
LA Campus
New York
Founded in 1922 as an institution of pluralistic higher Jewish learning by social activist Rabbi Stephen S. Wise.
NY Campus
Ahavat Israel
HUC-JIR is the academic leader in making the Israel experience an integral part of Jewish professional and academic training, fostering a deeper sense of identity and mutual responsibility as part of a global people.
