Organized American Judaism — not unlike other American faith traditions — is in the midst of a shakeup. The latest evidence of this was the recent announcement that Reform Judaism’s first rabbinic seminary, in Cincinnati, will soon cease ordinations at the end of the 2026 academic year.

Nothing about this strikes me as shocking or even unusual. I view religious bodies as bureaucratic extensions of living traditions in which evolutionary change is both normal and inevitable. They’re shapeshifters and those institutions that do not accommodate changes in worship style are bound to calcify over time.

This is not to deny that change can be wrenching. We tend to become deeply attached to the familiar. As a species, we anchor our livelihoods, identities and emotional equilibrium in what we like to think of as comforting routine. We want to know what’s expected of us so we may reap the rewards we think our efforts should bring.

The devil we know is preferable to the devil we do not know.

So as one might expect, the recent news from Hebrew Union College’s board of governors that its Ohio campus, opened in 1875, will cease ordaining new rabbis did not go down easy for those whose religious and professional lives are most directly impacted by the decision.

But what of ordinary North American Reform Jews (Canada is jurisdictionally connected to Reform’s U.S. institutions)? My sense is that most individual Reform congregants, if they’re even aware of the closing, are far less troubled. 

Why? Because declining rabbinic student applications coupled with shrinking congregational memberships have been cited as the twin reasons for the HUC decision. The declining numbers mean there are simply fewer to care.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz explained this as follows:

The plan’s backers said it would help the school reorient itself amid its ongoing financial and enrollment crisis. Over the past 15 years, enrollment at HUC’s three American campuses fell by 37 percent, with the largest drop, 60 percent, coming in Cincinnati. Meanwhile, the Reform movement has seen dues from congregations fall by two thirds over the same period, reducing the movement’s ability to pad the seminary’s stretched budget.

Click here for a link to the official HUC announcement about the decision. For those who need some background on Reform Judaism’s history, theology and social perspective, check out this Wikipedia entry.

Note that Reform Judaism, conceived in Germany as a liberal alternative to traditional Orthodoxy, has grown to be the largest of America’s Jewish denominations, claiming some 900,000 members out of the U.S.’s total Jewish population of between 5-6 million.

Note also that there are probably tens of thousands, if not more, of religiously liberal America Jews who live largely secular lives but, if pressed, may call themselves Reform Jews even though they are unaffiliated with a Reform (or any) synagogue congregation.

The HUC news, which broke earlier this month, received substantial coverage in American Jewish and Israeli media. It received less attention in non-Jewish media, and virtually none — so far — from the major national or international outlets. Local Cincinnati media, for whom this is also a story of economic impact, also reported the development, of course.

Here’s what the Forward published. As for non-Jewish (or Israeli) media here’s what Religion News Service had to say. 

(I’m case you're wondering, RNS covers religion but is not itself a specifically religious news outlet, as it was, for example, when it was owned by the United Methodist Church. That ended in the 1990s. Full disclosure: I sometimes write for RNS and spent five years in the late ‘90s as a Washington-based RNS national correspondent.)

As of this writing, not even the New York Times, published in the city with the largest Jewish population of any in the U.S., has as yet covered this latest development. Where is the elite news-media coverage on this important story?

The Los Angeles Times (greater Los Angeles has the nation’s second largest Jewish population) did, however, publish a pre-announcement story on HUC’s situation — but did so way back in 2009. 

This tells me how long HUC’s woes have been a front-burner issue. To my mind, that means nothing about what’s happening should have come as a surprise.

Understand that HUC will continue to ordain rabbis at its New York and Los Angeles campuses; it is not exiting the ordination business just shifting its operations.

Critics of the decision also noted that the decision to end the Cincinnati program was made in New York City.

That was enough for some to argue that the Reform movement was abandoning the nation’s “non-coastal” Jews. Because it’s been a residential program, some opponents of the shift argued that the higher living costs in New York and Los Angeles will simply price some would-be rabbinic students out of the market.

Here’s a bit more on this from the Haaretz article also cited above.

Opponents said they would view the plan’s passage as a sign the Reform movement was abandoning non-coastal Jews. They contended the plan would not produce enough savings to justify its implementation; would discriminate against students who are unable to study in cities with high costs of living; and could potentially lead to further closures in Cincinnati.

Opponents made several last-ditch efforts to avert the plan’s passage, including threatening to withhold individual donations to the school as well as congregational dues to the Reform movement should it pass. Ohio’s attorney general also alerted the school that the plan could be in violation of its nonprofit agreement, and thus potentially warrant an investigation.

No members of the Cincinnati faculty supported the proposal, and one publicly derided it in a speech in full view of the school’s president. …

The bottom line in this saga is that Reform Judaism is in a demographic downswing. The same may be said for Conservative Judaism, the more centrist of America’s three main Jewish congregational movements. Some have noted that the day may soon come when Reform and Conservative Judaism formally merge to achieve economic efficiencies.

Which brings us back full circle to the reference in my lede to other faith groups also losing members. We’ve heard for years that it’s the more liberal religions that are shedding members most quickly.

We’ve heard it about the once-dominant mainline Protestant churches —  the Episcopal, United Methodist, United Church of Christ, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and American Baptist, in addition to liberal Presbyterian and Lutheran denominations.

However it’s not as if all conservative denominations are flourishing. The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, has also reported shrinking membership in recent years.

Then there’s the Roman Catholic Church and it’s shutting and combining of parishes in various area. (It should be noted that, as with the Catholic hierarchy, the less centralized Reform movement has also had its share of sex scandals — none of which spurs institutional growth.)

This blog post from the Times of Israel makes the point that, while American Judaism may have its specifically Jewish drags on congregational growth, what’s happening is simply an extension of the United States’ increasing secularism and lifestyle choices — birth rates, for example — that go with it. It’s a problem clergy from across the theological spectrum must ponder. 

It’s also fair to conclude that the lingering COVID-19 pandemic upped the number of desertions as people became more comfortable with Zoom and other platforms that can deliver religious services online. The Jewish angle on this is explained in this essay from e-Jewish Philanthropy.

Who knows what American Judaism — and American religious practices more broadly — will look like a decade or two from now. In the meantime, religion journalists, if Reform congregations exist in your circulation zone why not survey them for a local story?

This is a broad trend worthy of ongoing coverage.

FIRST IMAGE: An uncredited graphic on falling demographics, featured at Business Review in Europe.