(JTA) — The Chicago-based Hebrew Theological College is affiliating with the Touro College and University system.

The affiliation will be complete at the end of June, Touro and HTC announced Monday.

Rabbi Zev Eleff has been appointed chief academic officer of the Hebrew Theological College, a nearly 100-year-old institution that offers advanced Jewish studies as well as rabbinic and academic scholarship and intellectual learning. More recently, programs were added in accounting, education, business, health sciences and psychology.

Eleff, who was ordained at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Yeshiva University, is the author of five books and more than 30 scholarly articles published in English and Hebrew. He was most recently an instructor in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University, from where he earned his doctorate in Jewish history.

The Touro system has over 18,000 students across 29 schools in five countries, with fields of study ranging from law and psychology to technology and Jewish studies.