I
Spirituality
New Team Effort
Reform, Conservative seminaries partner to train clergy.
Ben Harris
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
the expense of the other:' he said. "We're
not going to do that."
New York
T
he largest Conservative and
Reform seminaries are partner-
ing in a rabbinic training pro-
gram that officials from both schools say
is the first to provide joint instruction to
future clergy from different movements.
The program, funded by the Charles
and Lynn Schusterman Family
Foundation, will provide eight students
from the Jewish Theological Seminary
in New York and Hebrew Union College-
Jewish Institute of Religion, based in
Cincinnati, with funds for tuition and
living stipends for two years while they
receive professional skills training.
Though the course of study will not
focus on textual and theological areas,
where differences between the movements
are sharpest, the program, nevertheless,
signals an increased willingness to coop-
erate across denominational lines.
"We don't have the luxury of infinite
resources," JTS Chancellor Arnold Eisen
told JTA."There's also a positive good in
strengthening the Jewish people; and that
is accomplished by having our leaders
get to know one another, learn from one
another, respect one another."
Eisen said "exploratory discussions"
were under way for similar initiatives
with other seminaries, but he declined to
elaborate.
The partnership comes at a time when
the historically rigid lines between the
denominations have begun to blur.
In May, Hebrew College in Boston
graduated the first class from its recently
established rabbinical school, billed as the
world's first transdenominational rabbinic
training program. And recent years have
seen the rise of countless independent
prayer communities across the country
that are not easily classifiable in tradi-
tional denominational terms.
JTS and HUC also have established a
joint chair in Israel studies, though it's not
clear if the position will be filled in the
coming academic year.
"I do think we live in an age where
there is much greater permeability among
Rabbi Arnold Eisen, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Rabbi David
Ellenson, president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
The inclusion area is one
where differences between
Conservative and Reform
attitudes are probably
the most acute.
denominations than was present in
previous generations:' said Rabbi David
Ellenson, the president of HUC.
Ellenson said part of the reason is the
decline in social and economics gaps that
once separated the denominations.
Ellenson and Eisen both stress that
important distinctions remain between
the Conservative and Reform movements,
and that the growing partnership between
the schools does not represent an effort
to erase those differences. Rather, they
say, certain communal challenges tran-
scend those differences and ought to be
addressed jointly.
Still, Eisen acknowledged it would have
been difficult to imagine such a partner-
ship in an earlier era.
"I think if you go back decades, there
was a feeling that people scored points at
Fellowship Details
The Schusterman Rabbinical Fellowship
will provide training in three major
areas, according to Rabbi Hayim Herring,
the executive director of Synagogues:
Transformation and Renewal, or STAR,
who has helped develop the curriculum.
One part is demographics and Jewish
communal trends. Another is manage-
ment and organizational leadership. And
the last is inclusion, with an emphasis on
the intermarried.
The inclusion area is one where differ-
ences between Conservative and Reform
attitudes are probably the most acute.
Reform Jews consider the children
of intermarried couples to be Jewish,
provided they are raised as Jews, while
Conservative Jews do so only if the mother
is Jewish or the children have undergone a
conversion.
Different approaches also exist within
and between denominations toward the
awarding of synagogue honors to non-
Jewish spouses.
"Part of what we hope to achieve is
increased understanding," Herring said.
"I think it puts us in a great position to
model how to have a conversation which
is, in the words of the rabbis, Tshem
shamayim; or for the sake of heaven.
"What we're trying to do is not persuade
one another. I think we're going to have
some really interesting discussions and
I hope they'll be provocative in the best
sense of the word." _
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