David Ellenson | ZOOM |

        In Cincinnati, where Hebrew Union College has stood for 125 years, the new HUC president is anything but a household name. However, among Reform congregations and camps and the wider world of Jewish scholarship, where he is a sought-after speaker, Rabbi David Ellenson is a public intellectual.

        Now he must become a public figure as well, chosen this week as the eighth man to head the nation's oldest Jewish seminary.

        “It's the first time I've had calls from The Cincinnati Enquirer and New York Times on the same day,” Rabbi Ellenson said shortly after the HUC board's decision was announced Tuesday.

        A professor of Jewish religious thought at HUC's Los Angeles school, he has become chief executive officer of a seminary-graduate school with campuses in Cincinnati, New York, Jerusalem and Los Angeles.

ELLENSON FILE

• Title: President, Hebrew Union College.   • Born: Nov. 21, 1947, Brookline, Mass.   • Residence: Los Angeles.   • Graduated: Bachelor's degree, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va., 1969; master of arts, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1972; master of Hebrew letters, HUC in New York, 1976; master of philosophy, Columbia University, New York, 1977; Ph.D., Columbia University, 1981.   • Ordained: HUC in New York, 1977.   • Career: HUC, 1979-present as lecturer, assistant, associate and full professor of religious thought; also, director of HUC's Louchheim School of Judaic Studies, 1981-97, providing Judaic courses at the University of Southern California.   • Family: Married to Rabbi Jacqueline Koch Ellenson, chaplain at Harvard-Westlake School, a private Episcopal secondary school in suburban Los Angeles. Children: Micah, Hannah, Naomi and Raphael Ellenson, all at home, and a married daughter, Ruth Guffey-Ellenson.

        What remains undecided, Rabbi Ellenson said, is whether he will move to Cincinnati. His predecessors either already were in Cincinnati or established homes and offices here.

        The choice is up to Rabbi Ellenson. Operationally, it makes little difference which campus the president calls home, given the constant travel and ease of modern communications.

        However, it would be a disappointment to the Cincinnati faculty if Rabbi Ellenson remained in Los Angeles, according to Dr. Michael Meyer, professor of history on the HUC campus.

        The irony is that it was under the two longest-serving presidents of the past half-century — Cincinnatian Nelson Glueck and successor Alfred Gottschalk — that the branches were created and nurtured into full-fledged campuses suitable as home schools for an HUC president.

        What is not in doubt, Rabbi Ellenson indicated in an interview, is the continued existence of HUC's Cincinnati campus.

        Historically the Midwest was the heart of liberal Judaism. Today Jews increasingly are found on both coasts where HUC has strong branches.

"Enormous assets'

        Closing the Cincinnati campus as a cost-cutting measure was not mentioned by the HUC board during discussions before his unanimous election, Rabbi Ellenson said.

        In the same way, Dr. Meyer added, it is not “crucial” to the survival of the Cincinnati school to have the president here, however much the faculty has enjoyed that ease of access over the generations.

        Rabbi Ellenson succeeds Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, who resigned in December after being accused of improprieties with women in an earlier job.

        HUC is in a sense a multibranch university, said Rabbi Kenneth Ehrlich, dean of the Cincinnati campus.

        HUC's president is the chief executive officer, fund-raiser and recruiter-in-chief whose vision sets the agenda while vice presidents and a provost run the school and deans administer individual campuses.

        Within that structure, Rabbi Ellenson pledged to continue Rabbi Zimmerman's “trajectory” — that is, building the faculty and increasing HUC's emphasis on the “religious and spiritual components” in rabbinic training that traditionally was heavy on ancient, medieval and modern Hebrew texts.

        “David brings enormous assets to the college,” said longtime friend and HUC-ordained Rabbi Michael Signer, professor of Jewish thought and culture at the University of Notre Dame.

        Among those assets is that his vision of what HUC can be is “grounded in more than 20 years of daily life with students on all four campuses.”

        Rabbi Ellenson has taught at HUC since 1979. For much of that time, he also directed the HUC program that provides Jewish studies for the University of Southern California.

        “He's a mensch,” said Rabbi Laura Geller, meaning her colleague is a good and decent person.

        An HUC grad who is the first woman to lead one of Reform Judaism's largest synagogues — Temple Emanu-El in Los Angeles — Rabbi Geller said Rabbi Ellenson's reputation for “cutting edge” scholarship will immediately add luster to HUC's reputation and intangible encouragement to faculty.

        A problem that may take longer is finding students to fill vacancies in Reform congregations that support HUC.

Filling pulpits

        Forty-eight students were ordained during the past year — 31 in New York, 15 in Cincinnati and two in Jerusalem. Twenty-two took pulpits, mostly assistants in larger congregations. At least 20 congregations hoping to hire were disappointed.

        Rabbi Arnold Scher, placement director for the Reform movement, said there are more than 60 congregational openings in North America and at least 35 are suitable for just-ordained rabbis.

        He and Rabbi Ellenson attributed the shortfall to rabbis opting for doctoral studies or chaplaincies, teaching or executive posts in Jewish agencies.

        Although it takes at least five years to prepare a Reform rabbi at HUC, this fall's class offers hope.

        Rabbi Roxanne Schneider, HUC's national director of admissions and recruitment, counted 59 first-year rabbinical students, compared with 39 last year.

        She has been urging HUC alumni and congregations to identify and encourage talented men and women of all ages to apply and it's working, she said. Applicants cited economics; the shortage assures them of a job.

        Trouble filling pulpits is not unique to Reform Judaism. In addition to recruiting efforts, Rabbi Ellenson said he would build on efforts initiated by Rabbi Zimmerman, who came from a congregational career.

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