Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion – Cincinnati

Hebrew Union College was founded in Cincinnati in 1875 under the leadership of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise. Jacob Ezekiel was Secretary of the Board, registrar, and treasurer from the college's inception until just before his death in 1899. The first rabbinical class graduated in 1883. 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.

In 1950, Hebrew Union College gained a second campus when it merged with the rival Reform Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. The Jewish Institute of Religion was previously affiliated with the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue next door. 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. In January 2025, the building on West 4th Street was sold to New York University for $75 million. HUC will leave the property by 2027, pending renovation of its new location in another building in Manhattan. In February 2025, the college acquired the First Battery Armory to serve as its new location following a renovation to be completed in 2027.

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.