$22-Million Gift Will Create 4-Year L.A. Jewish Seminary : University of Judaism to Expand Rabbinic School

Rabbinical students will be able to complete their training and be ordained on the West Coast for the first time, thanks to a $22-million donation made to the University of Judaism.

The gift, from a family foundation that wishes to remain anonymous, is one of the largest ever made to a U.S. Jewish educational institution, said Robert Wexler, president of the campus on Mulholland Drive atop the Sepulveda Pass.

Wexler said the gift will allow the university to establish a four-year rabbinical school for students interested in becoming rabbis in the centrist Conservative branch of Judaism. Heretofore, those seminarians could study two years at the University of Judaism, then had to go to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York to complete training and receive ordination.

The expansion of the Westside university “reflects a coming of age for the Los Angeles-area Jewish community,” Wexler said. The Los Angeles metropolitan area has more than half a million Jews--second only to the New York City area’s 1.9 million.

The first home-grown rabbis, expected to be ordained in about three years, will fill a void in local Jewish life, Wexler said. “In Christianity, it would be unthinkable that a Lutheran minister or an Episcopal priest could be ordained at only one institution,” he commented.

Of 30 seminarians now taking classes at the Bel-Air university’s Ruth and Allen Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, about half have already made commitments to continue their studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, after a year of study in Jerusalem, Wexler said.

The others can now choose whether to remain in Los Angeles until ordination, Wexler said.

In contrast to the five- or six-year course of study required by the New York school, the local seminary will squeeze the program into four years and require only a summer of study in Israel instead of an entire year.

Chancellor Ismar Schorsch of the Jewish Theological Seminary said through a spokesperson Thursday that he would have no comment on the University of Judaism’s plans.

But “they are clearly not happy,” said Rabbi Elliot Dorff, the rector of the Bel-Air campus. “Until this week, [the Jewish Theological Seminary] has enjoyed a monopoly of training and ordaining Conservative rabbis, at least in North America.”

Dorff said some New York rabbis have voiced concern that creating a seminary on the West Coast would tend to divide Conservative Judaism’s rabbinical and synagogue bodies.

“Frankly, I don’t see that happening,” Dorff said. A second seminary “would attract people to the rabbinate who could not otherwise do it--many because they are starting second careers and could not relocate to New York.”

The donation to the university will be used to fund an endowment that will allow it to expand its faculty to full seminary size.

The donor insisted that the gift be anonymous, Wexler said, noting that “in Judaism one of the highest forms of charity is giving anonymously.” Wexler said he hopes the donation will inspire others to contribute large sums for Jewish education.

The donation to the University of Judaism is one of the biggest to a U.S. Jewish educational institution in more than 25 years.

According to a list of major private gifts in the Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac last year, the largest donation to a Jewish institution was $40 million to Yeshiva University in New York in 1993.

That does not approach the sums given some non-Jewish schools: In 1993, publishing magnate Walter H. Annenberg gave USC and the University of Pennsylvania $120 million each. New York University received a gift of art, land and cash estimated to be worth $125 million to $500 million from Sir Harold Acton in 1994. And in 1990, Asbury Theological Seminary, a conservative Protestant institution in Kentucky, received a gift of $53 million.

While the University of Judaism expansion will create new opportunities for Conservative rabbinical students, aspiring Reform and Orthodox rabbis still will not be able to complete their studies in Los Angeles.

Students in the liberal Reform wing can take two years of rabbinical classes at a branch of Hebrew Union College near USC, but must finish courses leading to ordination at campuses in either Cincinnati or New York. Orthodox rabbi candidates may take classes at Yeshiva of Los Angeles, but must attend the seminary run by Yeshiva College of New York to finish their studies and be ordained.

The new West Coast training ground for rabbis will face a different religious climate than exists in Eastern cities, Wexler said.

“Only about 25% of Jews join a synagogue in the Los Angeles area, compared to a much higher rate elsewhere,” he said. “The question is not where [local Jews] will affiliate, but whether they will.”

The new seminary will combine an emphasis on traditional Jewish texts with spiritual development and practical rabbinical skills, said Rabbi Daniel Gordis, dean of the Ziegler School.

“The Jewish community faces many critical issues in the coming century, not the least of which is creating the kind of Jewish leadership we will need for our continued survival as a people with a compelling role in the world,” Gordis said.

The University of Judaism is part of an expanding array of Jewish institutions in the Sepulveda Pass. The school has about 200 full-time students, evenly divided between those in graduate and undergraduate programs.

Lee College, its four-year liberal arts school, will probably remain its largest component, Wexler said.

The campus sits below Stephen S. Wise Temple, one of the largest synagogues in the country, on the east side of the San Diego Freeway. Nearby, the Hebrew Union College Skirball Cultural Museum will open next spring, and above the museum is the campus of the largest non-Orthodox Jewish high school in the nation--renamed the Milken Community High School of Stephen Wise Temple last week, after the Milken Family Foundation gave it $5 million.