Letter from Henry Adler promising funding for Rabbinical School

Founding of Hebrew Union College

Hebrew Union College was founded in 1875 by Isaac Mayer Wise as the first permanent Jewish institution of higher learning in the North America. By 1873, there were more than 150,000 Jews in the United States, and the Reform Movement was spreading. Wise helped create the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now the Union for Reform Judaism), connecting the twenty-eight founding synagogue congregations. The UAHC was originally founded in order to support a Hebrew Theological Institute, a seminary for Reform Jewish leaders. Early financial backing of the Institute was promised by Henry Adler (1808-1892), a businessman and philanthropist who lived in Lawrenceburg, Indiana and Cincinnati, Ohio.