Benefits of Sisterhood membership

​The umbrella organization for Reform Sisterhoods (including ours) is the Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ). Here are some of the benefits from our Sisterhood's membership in WRJ.
 
WRJ Consultant Program: This program was created to provide WRJ-affiliated sisterhoods with access to WRJ leaders who are knowledgeable in topics that our affiliates often find challenging.

WRJ Events:  WRJ hosts a variety of events for affiliated members and women of Progressive Judaism from around the world, which are meant to educate, inform, inspire, connect and elevate women’s leadership and spirituality. Several of our members recently attended the WRJ Social Justice Conference. An upcoming event is the WRJ Women's Journey to Israel , Feb 20-28, 2020.

WRJ Speaker's Bureau:  This WRJ service aims to help develop leadership skills, provide education, and bring spirituality to sisterhoods across North America by sending experienced WRJ leaders to lead special events and workshops for local groups.

WRJ Programs: WRJ Programs to foster women’s Jewish growth include Chai Mitzvah (we have a Chai Mitzvah group in our Sisterhood) and Lilith Salons.
 
WRJ Support for other Programs: WRJ provides generous support for the PJ Library program, the North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY) and grants to Sisterhoods to help them develop "outside the box" programs. WRJ also partners with the Religious Action Center (the RAC) to promote social justice and civil rights, and to fight antisemitism.

To personally experience the kind of high-caliber programs that WRJ promotes and develops, we urge you to attend Area Day on July 14 at University Synagogue. Here's a link for more information about Area Day: https://www.wrjpacific.org/southern-california-area-day.html

Speaking of WRJ support for activism, social justice and the RAC, do you know the story of Anat Hoffman? 

Hoffman was born on a kibbutz near Jerusalem in 1954. As a youth, she was a champion swimmer and competed in the Maccabiah Games, winning titles in nine events. In 1974, after she completed her service in the Israel Defense Forces, she and her husband at the time, Michael, left for the United States to study. She graduated from UCLA in 1980 with a B.A. in Psychology. While at UCLA, she was exposed to Reform Judaism and realized for the first time that Judaism was not limited to Orthodoxy.

Returning to Israel, she became an activist for religious pluralism. In the late 1980s, she led a campaign for consumer rights with regard to Bezeq, the Israeli telecommunications company, and her efforts were successful. Anat Hoffman is chair of the Domari Society of Gypsies in Jerusalem. She was the chairwoman of Women in Black, an international women's anti-war movement with an estimated 10,000 activists around the world. She was a member of the group that started Women of the Wall in December 1988. She has been arrested multiple times for wearing a prayer shawl at the Wall. Since 2002 Hoffman has served as Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center, which was founded in 1987 as the public and legal advocacy arm of the movement for Progressive Judaism in Israel. It is dedicated to promoting equality, justice, religious freedom.

The Jerusalem Post listed her fifth among its list of 50 Most Influential Jews, for forcefully and successfully bringing the issue of women's rights at the Kotel to the "forefront of the consciousness of world Jewry".