Conservative rabbinical school Ziegler pauses admissions, signaling broader overhaul

The Ziegler School of Rabbinical Studies has been renting space in Beverly Hills since 2024. Photo by Louis Keene

By Louis Keene February 26, 2026

The Ziegler School of Rabbinical Studies will not be admitting new students in the upcoming academic year, it told current and prospective students this month, as a new university president plots a dramatic overhaul of the Conservative seminary in Los Angeles.

Ziegler’s admissions office informed applicants earlier this month that the decision was part of “a broader review and reimagining of our program.” The decision follows the January announcement that the school’s longtime dean, Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, would retire at the end of the 2025-26 school year.

Current Ziegler students said Jay Sanderson, the president of American Jewish University, Ziegler’s parent institution, told them their studies will continue as planned.

The change comes amid a decades-long decline in membership in Conservative Judaism, once the largest denomination in the United States. Sanderson previously told the Forward he envisions the seminary moving away from a strictly Conservative affiliation.

“As part of a broader strategic review of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, we are thoughtfully evaluating how best to position the school for long-term strength and sustainability,” Sanderson wrote in an email Wednesday. “This includes reviewing recruitment, program structure, communal needs and challenges.”

He added: “Our commitment to rabbinic education remains strong, and we are working with external advisors and a task force in formation to ensure that the next chapter reflects both institutional responsibility and the evolving needs of the Jewish community.”

Sanderson did not say who the external advisers were, or who was on the task force. He said the school would share more information “when appropriate.”

But one thing already seems clear: Conservative Judaism will no longer be the only path for study.

Speaking with the Forward last month about Artson’s retirement, Sanderson described the idea of “a multidenominational rabbinical school: teaching 21st-century skills as well as Torah and Talmud, and bringing people across denominations to learn together.”

The changes have left many on the faculty unsure of what lies ahead — and a few unaware of what rumored decisions have become official.

Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, who teaches rabbinics and has served on the Ziegler faculty since the seminary’s inception three decades ago, said that while he was aware a Shabbat program for prospective students had been canceled, the school had not communicated to faculty its decision to pause admissions altogether. Ziegler’s admissions website does not reflect any change in outlook.

“The future is foggy,” Cohen said. “Decisions are being made, I imagine, someplace, but we’re not part of them right now.”

Ziegler, founded in 1996, was the first full-fledged rabbinical school opened west of the Mississippi. It has since ordained more than 200 Conservative rabbis, and its faculty includes some of the leading thinkers of the movement.

In recent years, the seminary sought to adapt to a changing religious landscape. As Conservative synagogues across the country have faced declining membership, Ziegler’s enrollment has shrunk. In 2022, after enrolling just two new students the previous year, Artson slashed the school’s tuition 80%.

Two years later, AJU sold its 22-acre hilltop campus in Bel Air — one of the largest Jewish community properties in the state — with Ziegler relocating to rented space in West Los Angeles.

Admissions have picked up amid these changes. The last two school years have seen double-digit incoming classes, with roughly 30 to 35 students total in the four-year program. And the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, an umbrella organization for the movement, reported last year that half of its affiliated synagogues reported an uptick in attendance since Oct. 7.

Sanderson took over as president from Jeffrey Herbst in 2025. He previously served as chief executive of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.

The American umbrella organizations for Conservative Judaism, the USCJ and the Rabbinical Assembly, have largely remained quiet about the changes underway at the movement’s second-largest seminary and its intellectual anchor on the West Coast.

But Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, head of both the RA and USCJ, responded to the admissions news in a statement to the Forward.

“For over two decades the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies has ordained hundreds of outstanding rabbis to serve the Jewish people and the Conservative/Masorti movement. We appreciate the commitment by AJU that all current students will be able to complete their education in ways that qualify them for membership in the Rabbinical Assembly.

Stressing a need for more rabbis within the Conservative movement and beyond, and nodding to AJU’s planning underway, Blumenthal added: “We look forward to being a part of those conversations, helping to ensure that the school can continue its tradition of training rabbis for the Jewish people and for our movement.”