The Hebrew Seminary of the Deaf was established in 1992 to meet the spiritual needs of the Jewish deaf by training Jews, deaf and non-deaf, to work within Jewish deaf and hearing communities as teachers and rabbis. There are approximately 50,000 deaf Jews in the United States, many of whom are deprived of the opportunity to practice their religion because of their deafness. The seminary's five-year program also includes all of the standard curriculum and courses of study required for rabbinical ordination as well as having students become proficient signers in American sign language and Hebrew sign language.