The Israeli campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion has asked the nation’s High Court of Justice to reverse a government policy that denies the seminary funds because it is coeducational.
HUC, the Reform movement’s rabbinical seminary charges that the Religious Affairs Ministry’s policy is discriminatory and that HUC is entitled to the same type of government funding given to Orthodox seminaries.
The ministry has defended its policy by saying it supports all-male and all-female yeshivot, or religious schools, but not coeducational religious institutions.
HUC with additional campuses in Cincinnati, New York and Los Angeles, trains men and women to become rabbis, cantors and other professional Jewish leaders.
In 1990, its administration requested funding based on the religious ministry’s formula for allocating aid to religious institutions.
The ministry rejected the request saying it did not recognize HUC as a religious institution because men and women study together there.
HUC’s petition states that the decision to turn down the funding request is “contrary to the letter and sprit of the law, as well as to the basic principles of the Israeli legal system.”
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