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In a shift, Hebrew College will now admit and ordain rabbinical students whose partners are not Jewish
(JTA) — Hebrew College will begin admitting and ordaining rabbinical students in interfaith relationships, according to new admissions standards revealed on Tuesday.
The decision makes the pluralistic seminary outside of Boston the second major rabbinical school in the United States to do away with rules barring students from dating or marrying non-Jews. The Reconstructionist Rabbinical Seminary was the first to do so in 2015.
Hebrew College’s decision comes as rabbinical schools compete over a shrinking pool of applicants and after decades of rising rates of intermarriage among American Jews.
Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, Hebrew College’s president, announced the policy change in an email to students and graduates on Tuesday evening. She said the decision, which followed a year and a half of review, came amid a broad revision of the seminary’s “guiding principles for admission and ordination.”
Those new guiding principles were published on the admissions page of Hebrew College’s website late Tuesday, replacing different language that had included the partner policy. “We do not admit or ordain rabbinical students with non-Jewish partners,” the page had previously said, adding that applicants whose partners were in the process of converting would be considered.
“This is a really exciting moment for Jewish communities everywhere,” said Jodi Bromberg, the CEO of 18Doors, a Jewish nonprofit that supports interfaith families. “We all will get to benefit from Jewish leaders in interfaith relationships who have been sidelined from major seminaries up to now.”
Hebrew College has set aside time on Wednesday for its roughly 80 rabbinical students and others to process their reactions about the change, which Anisfeld had previously said she expected to be intense no matter the decision. She declined to comment late Tuesday, saying that she was focused on communication with members of her community.
“This has not been a simple process and, in addition to the strong feelings raised by the policy itself, there have been complex feelings about various stages of the process we’ve undertaken over the past year,” Anisfeld wrote in a message to students in October, in a series of emails obtained by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Hebrew College’s policy change reflects a longstanding and sometimes painful dynamic in American Jewish life: While nearly three-quarters of non-Orthodox Jews who married in the last decade did so to non-Jews, few traditional rabbinical schools have been willing to train or ordain rabbis in interfaith relationships. Their policies have roots in Jewish law, known as halacha, which prohibits marriages between Jews and non-Jews. But they also reflect anxiety among American Jewish leaders over whether high rates of intermarriage threaten the future of Judaism, and whether rabbis must model traditional practices in their families.
At Hebrew College, which launched its rabbinical school 20 years ago, the prohibition against interfaith relationships had been the only admissions requirement rooted in Jewish law beyond the rule that applicants must be considered Jewish according to at least one Jewish movement. There was no requirement that rabbinical students keep kosher or observe Shabbat.
When the school’s leadership first solicited feedback from students a year ago, several took aim at what they said was hypocrisy in the approach to Jewish law.
“This is the one area of students’ halachic life where I am acutely aware that the school does not trust us, does not think we are capable of navigating our own personal lives, and does not believe that the choices we may make for ourselves have the capacity to expand and enrich our Jewish practice,” wrote one student, according to a collection of anonymous comments shared among students at the time.
A chuppah at a Jewish wedding. More than 60% of American Jews who have married in the last decade have done so to non-Jewish partners, according to a 2021 study from the Pew Research Center. That proportion rises to nearly 75% for non-Orthodox American Jews. (Scott Rocher via Flickr Commons)
Most of the 15 comments that students and graduates shared with their peers called for doing away with the ban on interfaith student relationships, often citing the benefits of having Hebrew College-ordained rabbis reflect the families they are likely to serve.
“We should be training rabbis for the Jewish community that exists and that we want to cultivate, not the one we wish existed or that existed in the past,” one student wrote. “Having intermarried rabbis could do a lot of good: perhaps having role models for a fulfilling, active, intermarried Jewish can help people feel welcomed, not just grudgingly tolerated after the fact — and can increase the likelihood that those intermarried couples want to raise Jewish children.”
Several students and graduates wrote that the policy as it stood incentivized students to obscure their relationships, denying them dignity and preventing their mentors and teachers from fully supporting them. Several suggested that prohibiting students in interfaith partnerships could have a disproportionate effect on queer Jews and Jews of color.
At least one person argued against changing the policy, instead suggesting that the school strengthen enforcement and clarify expectations about other Jewish practices and values.
“By changing the policy Hebrew College is sending the message to the Jewish world that love-based marriages are more sacred than the covenant with which we made at Sinai,” that student wrote, referring to the moment in Jewish tradition when God first spoke to the Israelites. “However, by not changing the policy Hebrew College is affirming that students learn the art of lying. Therefore, my suggestion is to keep the policy but change the ethics on how it is enforced.”
Those comments followed a two-day workshop, facilitated by experts in conflict resolution, about the policy a year ago. The experience was challenging for many of those in attendance, according to the student comments.
“The pain of the need to hide was on full display during Winter Seminar, and I found myself wondering if I could remain in a community whose first response was anything other than to seek healing for the hurt that the policy has inflicted,” one wrote at the time.
With tensions high, an initial deadline to decide whether to keep the policy came and went last June. In late October, Anisfeld wrote to students with an update. A special committee including both rabbinic and academic faculty members had been meeting regularly since July, she said, and would be presenting their recommendation by the end of January.
Last week, she said in her message to students and graduates on Tuesday, Hebrew College’s board approved the policy change and admissions principles revisions.
The decision could renew pressure on other rabbinical schools amid steep competition for students. Several non-traditional rabbinical schools that do not have a requirement about the identities of students’ spouses have grown in recent years, while Hebrew College; the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College; and the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in the Conservative movement all shrunk. Hebrew College recently completed a move to a shared campus after selling its building under financial duress.
“We continue to hear from folks who want to be rabbis and up until this moment had really limited choices,” said Bromberg. “I can’t help but think that this will have a really positive impact on the enrollment in Hebrew College’s rabbinic program.”
The pressure could be especially acute for Hebrew Union College, the Reform seminary with three campuses in the United States. (Because of declining enrollment, the school is phasing out its Cincinnati program.) HUC does not admit or ordain students in interfaith relationships, even though the Reform movement, which does not consider halacha to be binding, permits its rabbis to officiate at intermarriages and to be intermarried themselves.
That policy, which the movement reaffirmed after extensive debate in 2014, has drawn resentment and scorn from some who say it is the only thing holding them back from pursuing Reform ordination.
“All my life, my community had told me that no matter who you are or who you love, you are equal in our community and according to the Divine. But now it feels like I’ve been betrayed, lied to, misled,” Ezra Samuels, an aspiring rabbinical student in a queer relationship with a non-Jewish man, wrote on Hey Alma in 2020, expanding on a viral Twitter thread.
But even the Conservative movement, which bars rabbis from officiating at intermarriages and only recently began permitting members of its rabbinical association to attend intermarriages, is grappling openly with how to balance Jewish law and tradition against the reality around interfaith relationships.
The movement recently held a series of online meetings for members of its Rabbinical Assembly to discuss intermarriage, sparking rumors that the movement could be headed toward policy changes. That’s not the case, according to movement leaders — though they say other shifts may be needed.
“There are no proposals at present to change our standard,” said Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, the CEO of the RA and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the movement’s congregational arm. “But there is a conversation about what are the ways that we can provide more pastoral guidance to colleagues, especially around moments of marriage.”
The Pew study found new high rates of intermarriage in the Jewish community. (iStock/Getty Images)
Keren McGinity, the USCJ’s interfaith specialist, previously directed the Interfaith Families Engagement Program, a now-defunct part of Hebrew College’s education school. She declined to comment on the internal conversations underway within the Conservative movement. But in 2015, she argued in an op-ed that the Jewish world would benefit from more rabbis who were intermarried.
“Seeing rabbis — who have committed their careers, indeed their lives to Judaism — intermarry, create Jewish homes and raise Jewish children should convincingly illustrate how intermarriage does not inhibit Jewish involvement,” she wrote, citing her research on intermarried couples.
That argument got a boost two years ago, when a major survey of American Jews found that most children of intermarried couples were being raised Jewish. And on Tuesday, McGinity said she was glad to hear that Hebrew College was dropping its partner requirement, which she said she knew had caused students to leave the program in the past.
“The decision to admit rabbinical students who have beloveds of other faith backgrounds is a tremendous way of leading in the 21st century, illustrating that interpartnered Jews can be exemplars of Jewish leaders,” she said.
She added, “Knowing my colleagues, I can only imagine the hours and hours of thought that went into this decision.”
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Republican Rep. Calls on Georgia Hospital to Cut Ties With Iranian Regime-Connected Physician
Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) Source: Youtube
Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) has called on Emory University and Georgia medical regulators to fire a physician with familial ties to a top Iranian official, amid international furor against that official for his role in the brutal suppression of protests in Iran.
In a letter dated Jan. 22, the Carter urged Emory University to terminate Dr. Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani’s appointment and asked the Georgia Composite Medical Board to revoke her medical license, arguing that her connection to her father, Ali Larijani, poses national security and patient trust concerns. The letter contends that allowing someone with such ties to practice medicine in the United States is “unacceptable,” especially given recent U.S. actions targeting Iran’s leadership and repression apparatus.
“Allowing an individual with immediate familial ties to a senior official actively calling for the death of Americans to occupy such a position poses a threat to patient trust, institutional integrity, and national security,” Carter wrote.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury this month sanctioned Larijani, who serves as Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, for his role in coordinating the Iranian government’s violent crackdown on peaceful protesters that erupted in late 2025 and continued into January 2026. According to the Treasury, Larijani publicly called on security forces to use force against demonstrators demanding basic rights, and his actions are tied to thousands of deaths and injuries.
Those sanctions, announced Jan. 15 by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, target Larijani along with nearly two dozen other officials and shadow banking networks that finance the Iranian regime’s repression and global destabilizing activities. The move is part of a broader U.S. effort to increase economic pressure on Tehran, using executive authorities related to human rights abuses and support for terrorism.
The sanctions designation bars Larijani and the other named individuals from the U.S. financial system and prohibits American persons and companies from conducting business with them. Treasury officials said the measures also aim to disrupt the financial networks that allow Iran’s elite to launder revenue from petroleum and petrochemical sales funds that the U.S. says are diverted to repression and support for proxy groups abroad.
Larijani’s role in the crackdown has also been highlighted by a former Iranian government insider, who spoke with the IranWire outlet, alleging that Larijani played a central role in orchestrating the January 2026 suppression drawing comparisons to historic violent suppressions and suggesting the strategy was part of internal power consolidation within Iran’s leadership.
Protests that began in Iran in December have left at least 5,000 people dead, more than 7,300 injured and upwards of 26,800 detained, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. The unrest was initially sparked by rapidly deteriorating economic conditions, skyrocketing inflation, and a plummeting currency. However, the demonstrations quickly expanded into a wider movement opposing the country’s ruling establishment. Iranian authorities released their first official death toll on Wednesday, reporting 3,117 fatalities. The government said 2,427 of those killed were civilians or members of the security forces, while the remainder were labeled “terrorists,” without offering a detailed accounting of civilian versus security force casualties.
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Iran Claims Long-Range Missile Progress as US Boosts Military Presence Amid Deadliest Crackdown Since 1979
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 17, 2026. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran claimed this week it successfully tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of striking the US’s East Coast, as Washington bolsters its military presence in the region and tensions soar amid Tehran’s intensifying crackdown on protesters.
According to state-affiliated media, the Iranian government conducted a successful missile launch test this week from an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base in Semnan, a city in north-central Iran, firing it toward Siberia with Russia’s approval.
Even though the missile was reported to have a range of up to 3,700 miles, it is unclear whether it reached its target, as the launch video shows little beyond a projectile soaring through the clouds.
Last year, a report from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) warned that Iran could possess up to 60 intercontinental ballistic missiles by 2035, signaling the regime’s growing long-range strike capabilities and the potential future threat to the US and its allies.
“Missile threats to the US homeland will expand in scale and sophistication in the coming decade,” the report said. “North Korea has successfully tested ballistic missiles with sufficient range to reach the entire Homeland, and Iran has space launch vehicles it could use to develop a militarily viable ICBM by 2035 should Tehran decide to pursue the capability.”
Meanwhile, as regional tensions mount over the regime’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protests, the United States has moved a range of military assets into the area — including the USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group.
In the last few weeks, President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned that he may take “decisive” military action against Iran if the regime continues killing protesters.
“We’re watching Iran,” Trump said on his way back from the World Economic Forum in Davos. “I’d rather not see anything happen but we’re watching them very closely.”
“We have a large fleet moving into the region. We’ll see what happens if we have to use it,” he continued. “We are building a very large force there, and we are closely monitoring their actions.”
For his part, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday accused the United States and Israel of fueling the widespread anti-government protests, calling it a “cowardly revenge … for the defeat in the 12-Day War.”
IRGC commander Gen. Mohammad Pakpour also threatened Israel and the United States over any potential military action, warning them to “avoid any miscalculations” to prevent what he described as a “more painful and regrettable fate.”
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and dear Iran have their finger on the trigger, more prepared than ever, ready to carry out the orders and measures of the supreme commander-in-chief,” Pakpour was quoted as saying by local media.
With pressure mounting at home and abroad, experts say it remains unclear how Tehran will respond — whether by escalating militarily beyond its borders or by offering limited concessions to ease sanctions and mend ties with the West.
The nationwide protests, which began with a shopkeepers’ strike in Tehran on Dec. 28, initially reflected public anger over the soaring cost of living, a deepening economic crisis, and the rial — Iran’s currency — plummeting to record lows amid renewed economic sanctions, with annual inflation near 40 percent.
With demonstrations now stretching over three weeks, the protests have grown into a broader anti-government movement calling for the fall of Khamenei and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and even a broader collapse of the country’s Islamist, authoritarian system.
According to the US-based human rights group HRANA, 4,519 people have been killed during the protests, with another 9,049 fatalities under review. At least 5,811 people have been injured, and 26,314 arrests have been recorded.
Iranian officials have put the death toll at 5,000 while some reports indicate the figure could be much higher.
On Friday, the UN Human Rights Council said that the current wave of violence against protesters is “the deadliest crackdown since the 1979 Islamic Revolution,” citing credible evidence that the actual death toll is “much higher” than official figures, which already run into the thousands.
With Iranian authorities maintaining an internet blackout for over two weeks, the actual number of casualties remains difficult to verify. Activists fear the internet shutdown is being used to conceal the full extent of the crackdown on anti-regime protests.
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Jewish K-12 Teachers in US Report Facing Rampant Antisemitism on the Job Amid Rising Incidents in Schools
A high school campus in Wyoming. Photo: USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.
Jewish K-12 teachers in the US face widespread antisemitic discrimination, harassment, and bullying in both public and non-Jewish private schools, according to preliminary results of a new survey conducted by the research arm of the StandWithUs advocacy group that were shared on Thursday.
The survey, to which the country’s leading scientific ethics committee conferred approval, found that 61.6 percent of the 584-person sample have been both targets and witnesses of antisemitic conduct in a professional setting. Meanwhile, nearly half suffered antisemitism perpetrated by their teachers unions, purportedly their advocates and representatives in collective bargaining.
School districts, obligated to comply with civil rights laws which proscribe discrimination, fail at prevention, according to the data. Of the 65 percent of respondents who said they are required to take anti-bias trainings, only 10 percent said those trainings address antisemitism.
“This first of its kind empirical study sought to understand antisemitism experienced by Jewish educators in K-12 education. Over 60 percent of respondents reporting that they personally experienced or witnessed antisemitism in their profession is an astounding number,” StandWithUs data and analytics director Dr. Alexandra Fishman said in a statement. “StandWithUs is deeply committed to rigorous research that serves both academic and lay audiences.”
She added, “While this study is being prepared for peer review, we are releasing some results now because Jewish educators cannot wait for academic publishing timelines to address the discrimination they face daily in our schools.”
Alyson Brauning, interim chair of the National Education Association’s Jewish Affairs Caucus, added, “These findings, while disturbing, do not come as a shock. They reveal a serious disconnect between stated commitments to equity and the lived realities of Jewish educators.”
K-12 antisemitism has been fostered by the importation of anti-Zionist ideologies into the classroom, multiple advocacy groups have said.
On Tuesday, StandWithUs, joined by the North American Values Institute (NAVI), wrote to New York City’s public schools chancellor about the local United Federation of Teachers (UFT) union’s promotion of an anti-Israel event organized by a group which calls itself “NYC Educators for Palestine.” It targeted “kids ages 6-18,” according to social media screenshots included in the groups’ letter, violating New York City prohibition on indoctrinating schoolchildren with views held by schoolteachers.
“NYCPS [New York City Public Schools] teachers’ speech can be considered government speech, as opposed to private speech, depending on the context. The teachers involved in advertising and speaking at the event are proactively sharing their status and training as NYCPS teachers to attract attendance,” the groups said. “Doing so risks misleading families as to whether the event is sponsored or supported by the DOE [Department of Education].”
The UFT has been criticized for violating political neutrality before. According to a report published in September by the Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI), the union has gone from fostering popular support for anti-Zionism among students to seeking cover from government by placing one or more of its fellow travelers in high office. To that end, the UFT endorsed the New York City mayoral candidacy of Zohran Mamdani in July, calling the avowed socialist and Hamas sympathizer a potential “partner.”
Civil rights groups have argued that pushing anti-Zionism in the classroom can have a profound impact on students, who in many cases perpetrate antisemitic incidents. On Thursday, for example, local media reported that two 15-year-olds were arrested on suspicion of having graffitied 60 swastikas all over a playground in Brooklyn.
“Words are not enough. Condemning is not enough,” community activist Devorah Halberstam told local station WABC. “There has to be change. Immediate change.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.