This Rabbinical School is Moving Into a Catholic University

The Washington Post ^ | 9/2/21 | Yonat Shimron

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(RNS) — The Academy for Jewish Religion California has rented space in several locations during its 21-year existence as a transdenominational seminary that trains rabbis and cantors.

For a while it was housed in an office building in downtown Los Angeles, then at Hillel, the Jewish campus organization at the University of California Los Angeles.

But beginning Oct. 1, in an arrangement both novel and pathbreaking, the academy will move to Loyola Marymount University, a private Catholic school founded by the Jesuit and Marymount orders.

The move is not merely envisioned as a rental contract for three offices and four classrooms, though a three-year lease has been signed. The idea is to allow for some joint classes as well as other collaborations. LMU students in theology might take a Hebrew class at the academy, while academy students might take an elective in the New Testament through LMU’s theology department. (LMU does not have a seminary.)

Down the road, a joint degree in interfaith relations or a center for interfaith understanding, or both, are being considered.

“We have only begun to imagine together,” said Robbin D. Crabtree, dean of LMU’s Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts.

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There was a Catholic college in the Bronx that moved up to Westchester and its campus was taken over by adjacent City College of New York (CCNY.) CCNY is heavily Jewish.

When the transfer officially took place, some students unveiled a banner saying, “Catholic College Now Yiddish.”