I don't do a lot of posting (I know, online-journalism-hustle-culture, I should, but I raise you: I'm busy, am an introvert, and don't want to) but figured I should say something about this story, which took nearly two years and roughly 18,000 words to report, about the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. HUC-JIR is *the* rabbinical school of the Reform movement.
This story fulfills a lot of what I care about in journalism: A deep dive on a local issue that really matters to the community. HUC-JIR was started in Cincinnati nearly 150 years ago, and has grown into the oldest and largest rabbinical school in the world.
Generations of rabbinical students served not just Cincinnati, but Jewish communities across the Midwest, South, and even small communities in Alaska and Canada. Likewise, generations of Cincinnatians supported the school.
And yes, I know it's bonkers to have written 18,000 words on this -- really about anything nowadays. Two years ago I thought following up on the college would be basic ongoing coverage. But the story that community members kept telling me was too big to condense.
So here we are. A look at the college's actual financials, the leadership that brought HUC-JIR to this moment, and what seems to be an effort to sell rare items from the Klau Library -- one of the greatest Jewish library collections in the world.
I also hope this story complicates the way we talk about Jewish institutions, which -- for all the (rightful) focus on Jewish life outside the mainstream -- still form the backbone of Jewish life in this country and around the world.
For the past several years, HUC-JIR has talked about itself basically as a helpless victim of changes in American Jewish life, like declining denominationalism and rabbinical enrollment. But so much of the college's story is about leadership, choices made, and choices not made.
Which ties into one of the most important things I've come to appreciate about the world around us, from politics and religious life to economics and health insurance: The world we live in is a result of policy, not inertia. There's real disruption, but how we respond matters.
Students, alumni, and former faculty describe the Cincinnati campus as now being in hospice, with the community helpless and exhausted as HUC-JIR offers little substantial detail, in public or private, to explain how the institution will achieve its glowing vision for 3101 Clifton Ave.
Instead, the campus is being hollowed out. The administration offered buyouts, pushed out faculty and staff, and slated more programs for closing – including its 76-year-old graduate school in Cincinnati. “Leave us alone and let us die in peace,” is a common refrain among some Cincinnati students when discussing the college administration.
![How To Close A Campus: HUC-JIR Bleeds Money While Cincinnati Pays The Price]()
How To Close A Campus: HUC-JIR Bleeds Money While Cincinnati Pays The Price