| Type | Seminary |
|---|---|
| Established | 2000 |
| Affiliation | Jewish (nondenominational) |
| Location | , , 34°04′13″N118°26′18″W / 34.0702°N 118.4384°W Coordinates: 34°04′13″N118°26′18″W / 34.0702°N 118.4384°W |
| Website | ajrca |
The Academy for Jewish Religion California (AJRCA), is a Jewish seminary in Los Angeles. It trains rabbis, cantors and chaplains to serve congregations and organizations of any Jewish denomination. [1]
The school was conceived as a transdenominational alternative to the more established rabbinical schools by two Los Angeles rabbis, Stanley Levy and Stephen Robbins, later joined by a third, Mordecai Finley, who became president of the school soon after its establishment in 2001. Initially conceived as a branch of the New York City-based Academy for Jewish Religion, it soon became independent. [1]
In its first years the school was housed in a small temple in West Los Angeles, [2] later moving to the Yitzchak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life at UCLA. It ordained its first three rabbis in 2003, and provided a means for students to pursue rabbinical studies while still working in other jobs. [1]
In 2010 the school partnered with Claremont School of Theology (CST) to provide a Jewish component for CST's interfaith curriculum. [3] In January 2013 Tamar Frankiel became the president of the Academy for Jewish Religion, making her the first Orthodox woman to lead an American rabbinical school. [4] [5] The school itself is transdenominational, not Orthodox. [5] Later in 2013, the Academy relocated from UCLA to a building in Koreatown shared with two other Jewish organizations. [6] The Academy returned "home", to UCLA Hillel in the fall of 2017.
The Yitzchak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life is a center for Jewish cultural, religious and spiritual education at the University of California, Los Angeles. [7] [8] [9] The Hillel has been home to the Academy since the new building was dedicated in 2002. [10]
The subject of homosexuality and Judaism dates back to the Torah. The book of Vayikra (Leviticus) is traditionally regarded as classifying sexual intercourse between males as a to'eivah that can be subject to capital punishment by the currently non-existent Sanhedrin under halakha.
A rabbi is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as semikha – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of the rabbi developed in the Pharisaic and Talmudic eras, when learned teachers assembled to codify Judaism's written and oral laws. The title "rabbi" was first used in the first century CE. In more recent centuries, the duties of a rabbi became increasingly influenced by the duties of the Protestant Christian minister, hence the title "pulpit rabbis", and in 19th-century Germany and the United States rabbinic activities including sermons, pastoral counseling, and representing the community to the outside, all increased in importance.
Elliot N. Dorff is an American Conservative rabbi. He is a Visiting Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law and Distinguished Professor of Jewish theology at the American Jewish University in California, author and a bio-ethicist.
The Musar movement is a Jewish ethical, educational and cultural movement that developed in 19th century Lithuania, particularly among Orthodox Lithuanian Jews. The Hebrew term Musar (מוּסַר), is adopted from the Book of Proverbs (1:2) describing moral conduct, instruction or discipline, educating oneself on how one should act in an appropriate manner. The term was used by the Musar movement to convey the teachings regarding ethical and spiritual paths. The Musar movement made significant contributions to Musar literature and Jewish ethics. The movement has been revived in the 21st century amongst Jews of all denominations, particularly in the United States.
A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish musician or precentor trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer. In English, this prayer leader is often referred to as a cantor, a term also used in Christianity.
Jewish religious movements, sometimes called "denominations", include different groups within Judaism which have developed among Jews from ancient times. Today, the most prominent divisions are between traditionalist Orthodox movements ; modernist movements such as Conservative, Masorti and Reform Judaism; and secular or Hiloni Jews.
The Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion is a Jewish seminary with three locations in the United States and one location in Jerusalem. It is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism. HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, Ohio, New York City, Los Angeles, California and Jerusalem. The Jerusalem campus is the only seminary in Israel for training Reform Jewish clergy.
Yeshiva Torah Vodaas is a yeshiva in the Kensington neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary is the rabbinical seminary of Yeshiva University (YU). It is located along Amsterdam Avenue in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.
David J. Wolpe is the Max Webb Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple. He previously taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, Hunter College, and UCLA.
Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to make the religious, legal, and social status of Jewish women equal to that of Jewish men in Judaism. Feminist movements, with varying approaches and successes, have opened up within all major branches of the Jewish religion.
David Ellenson is an American rabbi and academic who is known as a leader of the Reform movement in Judaism. Ellenson is currently director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and visiting professor of Near Eastern and Judaic studies at Brandeis University and interim president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). He previously served as president of HUC-JIR from 2001 to December 31, 2013, and is now chancellor emeritus of that college. Ellenson is currently serving as interim president following the death of his successor, Aaron D. Panken.
Adam S. Ferziger is an intellectual and social historian whose research focuses on Jewish religious movements and religious responses to secularization and assimilation in modern and contemporary North America, Europe and Israel. Ferziger holds the Samson Raphael Hirsch Chair for Research of the Torah with Derekh Erez Movement in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. He is a senior associate at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and is co-convener of the annual Oxford Summer Institute for Modern and Contemporary Judaism. He has served as a visiting professor/fellow in College of Charleston (2017), Wolfson College, University of Oxford, UK (2013), University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia (2012), and University of Shandong, Jinan, China (2005). In 2011, he received Bar-Ilan's "Outstanding Lecturer" award. Ferziger has published articles in leading academic journals of religion, history, and Jewish studies and is the author or editor of seven books including: Exclusion and Hierarchy: Orthodoxy, Nonobservance and the Emergence of Modern Jewish Identity ; Orthodox Judaism – New Perspectives, edited with Aviezer Ravitzky and Yoseph Salmon ; and most recently Beyond Sectarianism: The Realignment of American Orthodox Judaism, which was the winner of a 2015 National Jewish Book Award.
Yeshiva University, a United States private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel, was founded in 1886. It is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012.
The first openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender clergy in Judaism were ordained as rabbis and/or cantors in the second half of the 20th century.
Itamar Rosensweig is a rabbi and maggid shiur at Yeshiva University in New York City and a dayan at the Beth Din of America, where he also serves as the editor of Jewishprudence: Thoughts on Jewish Law and Beth Din Jurisprudence. Rabbi Rosensweig is also the resident scholar at Congregation Ahavath Torah in Englewood, NJ and teaches Jewish Business Law and Ethics at YU's Sy Syms School of Business. Previously, he taught an advanced Talmud shiur at Columbia University's Kraft Center, and presently serves as the maggid shiur at the University of Pennsylvania Hillel.
Lila Kagedan is a Canadian-born Jewish rabbi who in 2016 became the first woman with the title rabbi to be hired by an Orthodox synagogue. This occurred when Mount Freedom Jewish Center in New Jersey, which is open Modern Orthodox, hired Kagedan to join their "spiritual leadership team." She is currently the rabbi at Walnut Street Synagogue, an Open Orthodox synagogue in Massachusetts.
Aryeh (Robert David)Klapper is a leading American rabbi and Jewish thinker who serves as dean of the Center for Modern Torah Leadership. He is senior dayan of the Boston Beit Din, co-founder of the Boston Agunah Taskforce, and rosh kollel of the Center for Modern Torah Leadership's student fellowship program, the summer beit midrash. Klapper is known for his lectures, published academic and religious articles, and leadership in the Orthodox world. He was listed as one of Tablet Magazine's "Rabbis You Should Know" in 2014.
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