Jewish Theological Seminary Chancellor Arnold Eisen To Step Down

Jewish Theological Seminary Chancellor Arnold Eisen Image by courtesy of JTA
(JTA) — Jewish Theological Seminary Chancellor Arnold Eisen will leave his position at the end of the current academic year.
Eisen, who has served for 12 years, will remain on the faculty of the Conservative movement’s seminary. He will continue to teach and research, according to a JTS statement issued Thursday.
In the spring, Eisen will preside over the opening ceremony of the seminary’s new campus, a project that he led.
The chancellor told The New York Jewish Week in an interview this week that “I still love coming to work every day, but it is a good time to leave.” He said the seminary is growing.
Along with the new campus, Eisen was behind the launch of the seminary’s Block/Kolker Center for Spiritual Arts; the Center for Pastoral Education; the Milstein Center for Interreligious Dialogue; the Hendel Center for Ethics and Justice; and the Fellows Program. He also developed JTS Torah Online.
Prior to JTS, Eisen served on the faculties of Stanford, Tel Aviv and Columbia universities. He is the seminary’s eighth chancellor in over 130 years.
A search committee has been charged with finding a successor.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
- 2
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 3
Fast Forward How Coke’s Passover recipe sparked an antisemitic conspiracy theory
- 4
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion This Nazi-era story shows why Trump won’t fix a terrifying deportation mistake
-
Opinion I operate a small Judaica business. Trump’s tariffs are going to squelch Jewish innovation.
-
Fast Forward Language apps are putting Hebrew school in teens’ back pockets. But do they work?
-
Books How a Jewish boy from Canterbury became a Zulu chieftain
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.