Inaugural Virtual Pathway Class Begins Rabbinical Studies in Cincinnati

January 24, 2025

“We are taking a leap forward towards a new era for Hebrew Union College,” President Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D. declared, welcoming the inaugural class of the Rabbinical School virtual pathway to the historic Cincinnati campus, where 10 new rabbinical students began their studies with an in-person intensive January 12-14.

Virtual Pathways group photo in the Chapel

The inaugural class of the virtual pathway

While America and its Jewish communities have changed since Hebrew Union College was founded in 1875, Rehfeld continued, “the need for new rabbis from around the nation has not. Hebrew Union College has a responsibility for filling this need for rabbinical leadership” in a time when “life spans are getting longer affording second career opportunities,” but some aspiring rabbis are unable to relocate to study on campus.

“The virtual pathway gives us a modern approach to serving this need, allowing students to remain in their home communities while studying with exceptional academic faculty, having access to our extraordinary academic resources, and utilizing our alumni network for fieldwork and mentorship,” he said.

Rehfeld gave special thanks to Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss, Ph.D., Hebrew Union College’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost, who “has worked passionately and tirelessly to develop a transformative program that does not compromise on our rigorous academic standards, integrating academic rigor with practical field experience.”

In her own remarks at the intensive’s opening session, Weiss took the inaugural class back to the early days of the program’s conception “in the thick of COVID and our online academic year, sitting on my back porch on numerous zoom calls with Rabbinical School Director Rabbi Dvora Weisberg, Ph.D., Cantor Richard Cohn – then Director of the Debbie Friedman School for Sacred Music – and other members of our leadership team as we started to sketch out what a seminary course of study might entail for qualified learners across the country who feel called to sacred service but who cannot attend our current residential programs.”

The result is a new program that draws on best practices for executive graduate education, combining synchronous and asynchronous online classes with in-person intensives in Cincinnati and our other campuses, including a summer term at the Taube Family Campus in Jerusalem. The virtual pathway also includes clergy formation mentoring, supervised fieldwork, tefillah leadership training, spiritual direction, and other hallmarks of seminary education at Hebrew Union College.

Interim Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Initiatives Rabbi Karen Reiss Medwed, Ph.D., who brought her experience in online graduate programs from Northeastern University to work on the design of the virtual pathway, said, “HUC is transforming the rabbinate for today’s milieu, broadening the network of connected communities that have rabbinical students living in their midst, while they are engaged in rigorous studies and meaningful spiritual experiences.”

Seminar room with students

Rabbi Richard Sarason teaches virtual pathway students during their in-person intensive in Cincinnati

Sessions during the Inaugural Class Intensive in Cincinnati included an overview of the virtual pathway curriculum with Rabbi Dvora Weisberg, Ph.D., Director of the Rabbinical School and the Rabbi Aaron D. Panken Professor of Rabbinics, who served as Chair of the Rabbinical Curriculum Task Force. Weisberg also led a session on “Journey to the Rabbinate: Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer 1-2.” The students studied with members of the Cincinnati faculty, including sessions on “Thinking about and Performing the Poetics of Jewish Worship,” taught by Rabbi Richard Sarason, Ph.D, the Deutsch Family Professor of Rabbinics and Liturgy and Pines School of Graduate Studies Director, “The Potential Power of Shabbat Torah Study” by Rabbi David H. Aaron, Ph.D., Professor of Hebrew Bible and History of Interpretation, and “Finding Ourselves in the Psalms” by Daniel Fisher-Livne, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible and the Languages of the Near East.

Virtual pathway students in the rare book room at the Klau Library

Jordan Finkin with students in the rare book room at the Klau Library

In addition, members of the inaugural class got a firsthand introduction to Hebrew Union College’s storied rare book collection at the Klau Library from Deputy Director and Rare Book and Manuscript Librarian Jordan Finkin, Ph.D., and an overview of research resources from Dana Herman, Ph.D., Associate Director of Research and Collections at Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives (AJA).

Virtual Pathway students looking at archives

Exploring archival research at Hebrew Union College’s American Jewish Archives

The new students also met members of the Hebrew Union College Board of Advisors, including Karen Sim, President of Women of Reform Judaism. “We are in a moment of demographic change and transitions in our society. We need to be responsive to the people who live in that climate, both in terms of the people we are trying to take care of as Jews and towards the people who we hope will take care of them – the rabbis,” Sim said. “The definition of what a rabbi is, is going to be changing, and we need to be responsive to that. One of the ways that we are trying to be responsive is through the virtual pathway. It is a necessary step as we move forward in the 21st century and beyond.”

Daniel Hoffheimer, another member of the Board of Advisors, said that the virtual pathway is critical for the institution’s future and that of the Reform rabbinate because “many second-career students can’t pick up their families and move to Jerusalem, LA, or New York. They have jobs, they have families, and they can’t do it otherwise.”

One such student from the inaugural class is David Scott, who works as Director of Lifelong Learning and Engagement at Congregation Beth Israel in Houston, where he plans to continue working during and after his studies. “There’s no other way I could do this without becoming part of the virtual pathway,” he said. “I can’t uproot my life. I can’t move to Ohio or New York or LA, or Jerusalem for that matter. My life is in Houston, Texas, and it’s very full and very busy.”

Hadar Aviram, who works as a professor at the University of California College of the Law in San Francisco, expressed similar sentiments. “I don’t live anywhere near the campuses of HUC, so there is no way I could do this in person,” she said. “I work full time, and I have lots of responsibilities in my day job. I have a young child that I have a lot of responsibilities for, so this is really the only thing that’s going to make it possible for me.”

“One of the things that I’m really impressed with,” Aviram continued, “is how much work went into personalizing this experience for busy, second-career people. I love that there’s been such attention to what backgrounds people are bringing, what their strengths are in crafting individual schedules for each person.”

Cantor Irena Altshul said she enrolled in the virtual pathway out of an aspiration “to become a more scholarly Jewish leader.” A graduate of Hebrew Union College’s Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, where she also currently teaches, Altshul is the cantor at Temple Israel of the City of New York. She said because her current work already includes “some responsibilities that rabbis have as well, the idea of becoming a rabbi had been floating in my mind for quite some time.” But she added that she always had “the feeling that there is more to learn. I definitely wanted to learn more Torah. I love studying Torah. I love teaching Torah.”

“The virtual pathway rabbinical program enables me to continue to do what I love and to fulfill all my personal responsibilities and begin a new journey,” Altshul said. “I’m honored to be a member of this inaugural virtual class. I truly think that we are making history.”