Reform Movement
Rabbi Jacob with wife, Irene, in Rodef Shalom’s Biblical Botanical Garden. (Photo provided by Rodef Shalom)
October 28, 2024, 11:36 am
Rabbi Walter Jacob dies at 94
The long-serving rabbi of Rodef Shalom Congregation leaves behind a global legacy of scholarship and kindness.
By Eric Lidji
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion has announced plans to accept students with non-Jewish partners. (Photo by ajay_suresh, creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
June 25, 2024, 9:30 am
Hebrew Union College changes admission requirements
Announces plans to accept rabbinical students with non-Jewish partners
By David Rullo
Hebrew Union College- Jewish Institute of Religion's main campus is in New York City's Greenwich Village. (Plexi Images/GHI/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
June 20, 2024, 1:55 pm
Hebrew Union College to admit and ordain rabbinical students in interfaith relationships
A prohibition around Jewish exogamy … "is no longer rational because intermarriages can result in engaged Jewish couples,” says HUC president.
By Philissa Cramer
Kibbutz Tzuba, just west of Jerusalem, was the home of URJ's Heller High program for 22 years. (Courtesy Robin Kulwin)
June 22, 2023, 3:02 pm
The Reform movement ends its standalone semester-in-Israel program
Amid declining enrollment, the program will merge with the Alexander Muss High School in Israel.
By Jackie Hajdenberg
Rabbi Barbara Symons holds the Torah for all to see during an event celebrating 50 years of women being ordained in the Reform Movement. Photo by Rev. Liddy Barlow
June 6, 2023, 12:23 pm
Pittsburgh’s female clergy mark 50 years of Reform ordination
“We need to continue to articulate the gifts women bring to ordination,” she said.
By David Rullo
Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, seen in a video from Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, where he was senior rabbi from 1985 to 1996. (Screen shot from Vimeo via JTA)
February 17, 2023, 12:24 pm
Former Reform movement leader Sheldon Zimmerman expelled from rabbinical association
Zimmerman, 81, served as president of the rabbinical association for two years, and later as president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
By Asaf Elia-Shalev
Book cover
January 30, 2023, 12:12 pm
As non-Orthodox movements weaken, Danny Schiff ponders what’s next in new book
The book urges us to take seriously the Jewish mandate to “resume its role as an ideas generator” as the world is confronted by a host of moral dilemmas emerging from the the digital age.
By Toby Tabachnick
Rabbi Danny Schiff (Photo courtesy of Rabbi Danny Schiff)
January 27, 2023, 9:35 am
Rabbi Danny Schiff on his new book, ‘Judaism in a Digital Age’
The decline of non-Orthodox Judaism and what needs to come next
By Toby Tabachnick
Sam Bankman-Fried testifies during a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Dec. 8, 2021 (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
December 1, 2022, 12:43 pm
Will the Bankman-Fried scandal stop congregations from joining ‘effective altruism’ movement
Bankman-Fried has suggested that his embrace of E.A. was insincere, a tactic to bolster his reputation.
By Asaf Elia-Shalev
Nether Rabbi Amy Wallk nor Rabbi Mark Cohn had been looking for a relationship when they first met at the Shalom Hartman Institute in 2017. (Photo by Tamar Katz)
June 19, 2022, 10:11 pm
Two rabbis, from two different denominations, get a second chance at love
Though Wallk is a Conservative rabbi and Cohn is Reform, they quickly realized they had much in common.
By Alix Wall
(Image by Peggy and Marco Lachmann-Anke)
June 18, 2022, 10:00 pm
How Pittsburgh’s congregations are working to include nonbinary Jews
“You are who you are. Who you are is the way God made you. How can we reject that?” — Rabbi Yaier Lehrer
By Ethan Beck
Opponents to Hebrew Union College's restructuring plan hold a "Rally for our Rabbis" on the school's Cincinnati campus, April 7, 2022. The school board voted April 11 to approve the plan. (Courtesy of Lew Ebstein)
April 12, 2022, 9:11 am
Hebrew Union College to end Cincinnati rabbinical program
The board of governors' approval of the closure comes after years of declining revenue and enrollment at the school — and months of bitter debate across the Reform community.
By Andrew Lapin
The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Warren LeMay via Creative Commons)
March 23, 2022, 2:04 pm
Hebrew Union College could stop ordaining Reform rabbis in Cincinnati
The reasons for the proposal include a sharply declining enrollment and increased competition from seminaries that are not part of the Reform movement.
By Andrew Lapin
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion has announced plans to accept students with non-Jewish partners. (Photo by ajay_suresh, creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
November 9, 2021, 4:16 pm
6 men and a ‘good old boys’ culture harmed students at Reform movement’s rabbinical school, report concludes
“The pain that many witnesses have harbored based on their experience at HUC — some for decades — was palpable,” the report says.
By Philissa Cramer and Asaf Shalev
Rabbi Mary Zamore, the executive director of the Women's Rabbinic Network (Photo by Steve Shawl via JTA)
August 19, 2021, 2:59 pm
The Reform movement is investigating its history of rabbinic sexual misconduct
The investigations could bring long-buried misconduct to light and change the movement’s policies about how it handles complaints about its rabbis and employees.
By Asaf Shalev
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