, New York Hebrew Union College was founded in Cincinnati in 1875 under the leadership of Rabbi
Isaac Mayer Wise. The graduation banquet for this class became known as the
Trefa Banquet because it included food that was not
kosher, such as
clams,
soft-shell crabs,
shrimp,
frogs' legs and dairy products served immediately after meat. At the time, Reform
rabbis were split over the question of whether the Jewish dietary restrictions were still applicable. Some of the more traditionalist Reform rabbis thought the banquet menu went too far, and sought an alternative between Reform Judaism and
Orthodox Judaism which led to the founding of American
Conservative Judaism. Additional campuses were added in Los Angeles in 1954 and in Jerusalem in 1963. In 1979, Hebrew Union College moved its New York campus from the original Jewish Institute of Religion building to 1 West Fourth Street in
Greenwich Village. The Jewish Association for Services for the Aged took over the building until 1997, when the
Ramaz School, in an expansion deal for itself and
York Prep School, bought the building and traded it with York for their prior campus on the block of Ramaz. The college acquired the
First Battery Armory to serve as its new location in February 2025. Hebrew Union College is an international seminary and graduate school offering a wide variety of academic and professional programs. In addition to its Rabbinical School, the college includes Schools of Graduate Studies, Education, Jewish Non-Profit Management, and
sacred music, a program in
Biblical archaeology and an
Israeli rabbinical program. The Los Angeles campus runs many of its programs and degrees in cooperation with the neighboring
University of Southern California. Their 50-year collaboration includes the creation of the
Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement, an interfaith think tank through the partnership of HUC, USC, and Omar Foundation. CMJE holds religious text-study programs across Los Angeles. Rabbi
Alfred Gottschalk was appointed as Hebrew Union College's sixth president, following the death of
Nelson Glueck. As president, Gottschalk oversaw the growth and expansion of the Hebrew Union College campuses, the ordination of
Sally Priesand as the first
female rabbi in the United States, the investiture of Reform Judaism's first female
hazzan and the ordination of
Naamah Kelman as the first female rabbi to be ordained in Israel. In 1996, Rabbi
Sheldon Zimmerman was appointed as the 7th President of Hebrew Union College. He was succeeded in 2000 by Rabbi
David Ellenson as the 8th President. The 9th president of Hebrew Union College, elected in 2014, was Rabbi
Aaron D. Panken, Ph.D. A noted authority on rabbinic and
Second Temple literature, with research interests in the historical development of legal concepts and terms, Rabbi Panken was killed in a plane crash on May 5, 2018, while piloting a single-engine Aeronca 7AC over
New York's
Hudson Valley.
Andrew Rehfeld was elected the 10th president on December 18, 2018, and inaugurated at Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati on October 27, 2019. On April 11, 2022, the Board of Governors at Hebrew Union College voted to shutter the residential rabbinical program in Cincinnati by 2026 due to financial troubles and falling enrollment. Also in 2022, Hebrew Union College for the first time granted a certificate of ordination to a
nonbinary candidate. ==Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music==