Courtesy of HMdb.org. Photo credit: William Fischer, Jr
Jewish Institute of Religion historical marker
By David Woolpy
Assistant Editor
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has filed a new lawsuit against Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, seeking to block the closure of its Cincinnati rabbinical school and prevent the sale or transfer of assets that donors intended to remain in the city.
The complaint, filed in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, argues that Hebrew Union violated both its founding documents and Ohio law by moving forward with plans to shutter its rabbinical program at the end of the 2025–26 academic year. At the center of the case is a 1950 agreement requiring the college to “permanently maintain” a rabbinical school in Cincinnati.
“Hebrew Union accepted millions of dollars in donations based on a 76-year-old promise it now would like to break,” Yost said in announcing the lawsuit. “We’re suing to keep these assets in Cincinnati where they belong.”
According to the attorney general’s office, the college’s 2022 decision to remove that requirement from its governing documents and proceed with closing the campus constitutes a breach of charitable trust. The lawsuit further alleges that restricted donations — given specifically to support the Cincinnati campus — have been improperly redirected to the institution’s other locations in New York, Los Angeles and Jerusalem.
Yost is asking the court to block any sale of the Cincinnati campus and prevent the transfer of restricted funds out of Ohio. The suit also seeks a full accounting of Hebrew Union’s Ohio-based assets and a court order that would ensure those resources continue to support a permanent rabbinical presence in Cincinnati.
Hebrew Union leadership has previously defended its decision to close the Cincinnati rabbinical program, citing shifting enrollment patterns and a preference among students for its campuses in New York and Los Angeles. The college has said it intends to maintain its library and archival presence in Cincinnati even as it winds down degree-granting programs.
The planned closure has drawn sustained criticism from within the Reform movement, particularly among those who view Cincinnati as the historic center of Reform Judaism in America. In response, a group of former Hebrew Union leaders and other figures in the movement has begun organizing a new rabbinical school in the city.
The initiative, known as the College for Contemporary Judaism (CCJ), will be led by Rabbi Gary Zola, a longtime scholar of American Jewish history with deep ties to Hebrew Union’s Cincinnati campus. Organizers say the new institution is intended to preserve a Midwestern base for rabbinical education at a time when training has become increasingly concentrated on the coasts.
“For over 150 years, men and women from across the country have come to Cincinnati to become Rabbis,” said Zola. “From the services provided to them, to lectures and discussions as well as sermons, the rabbinical school history of Cincinnati has been inspirational to leaders and future leaders of Judaism for over a century.”
“Well trained, highly educated and dynamic men and women who are capable, qualified rabbinical leaders who want to lead our people both spiritually and educationally is a tradition that CCJ will continue,” says Zola with passion.
“On the day that I learned of the attorney general’s lawsuit, I received a call from a woman who had been admitted to HUC’s rabbinical program,” explains Zola. She simply could not attend schools on either coast and had no where else to turn, one of many whom CCJ can continue to serve well into the future.
While details about the new school are still emerging, its formation underscores the broader stakes of the dispute: not only the fate of a historic campus and its assets, but also the future of rabbinical training in Cincinnati.
