JTS Restructures Cantorial Program
from Tablet Magazine:
As part of a major restructuring effort, the Jewish Theological Seminary announced last week that its cantorial school, traditionally separate from the rabbinical school, will be integrated into the rabbinical school. Henry Rosenblum, the well-regarded dean of the H.L. Miller Cantorial School, will be laid off. The move provoked an outcry from the seminary’s cantorial students, who fear that the shift will mean an end to the automony that they and their school previously enjoyed.
The shift comes at a delicate time for the institution and for the Conservative movement, for which it serves as spiritual incubator and intellectual home. The school is reportedly millions of dollars in debt. At the same time, the once-vibrant movement has seen a steady shrinking of its membership rolls and a parallel diminution in what sets it apart from Judaism’s Reform movement.