From the Jewish Week:
The Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, faced with a projected $3 million deficit this academic year, is on the verge of making what its president calls “radical” structural changes that could mean the closing of two of its three campuses in the U.S.In a letter this week to the HUC community and obtained by The Jewish Week, Rabbi David Ellenson, the president, wrote that the college “stands at a fateful crossroads.
“The financial crisis that has engulfed the world these past six months has had a painful impact on the Reform movement and the college-institute,” he wrote.
HUC-JIR is the educational and intellectual center of Reform Judaism.
Rabbi Ellenson said that the 20 percent cut in dues for the Reform movement’s 900 synagogues cost the college $2.5 million to $3 million. In addition, he said a substantial decline in endowments, ongoing pension liability payments and flat fundraising have placed the institution “in the most challenging financial position it has faced in its history — even more so than during the Depression.”
Changes in the college’s operation are “inevitable and necessary,” he said, adding that “all the scenarios being considered involve radical” measures.
“Some scenarios under consideration focus on an HUC-JIR of one stateside campus,” he said.
The college now has campuses in Los Angeles, Cincinnati and New York, where Rabbi Ellenson is based.
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