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For many years, Women of Reform Judaism, alongside the Reform Movement, has been dedicated to ensuring that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals enjoy the rights they deserve as people and as citizens. These rights include but surely are not limited to equal access to civil marriage and all the related federal protections, protection from sexual orientation and gender identity-based, bullying and hate crimes, and at this crucial juncture, employment discrimination.

We are in the midst of the High Holy Days-the days of awe, the days of repentance. Kol Nidre is upon us! As each of us sit in our seats with our respective congregations throughout North America and beyond, we will read our beautiful liturgy, we will listen to the haunting melody of Kol Nidre and we will have an opportunity to reflect and repent for our transgressions of the past year. So I begin my Shabbat message to all of my dear friends at WRJ, and I want to sincerely apologize if I have in any way hurt you and truly ask for your forgiveness.

By Rabbi Carole Balin In partnership with the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, WRJ has engaged 15 scholars to research various aspects of WRJ’s history and its impact on the North American Jewish community. This Ten Minutes of Torah is an excerpt of one of the articles, which will appear in a volume available at the WRJ Assembly in San Diego in December 2013. The Uniongram has done for WRJ what, in many ways, the cookie did for the Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA). Both organizations emerged within years of each other, 1913 and 1915 respectively; and each has raised millions of dollars by putting its membership's can-do attitude to work marketing, merchandising and selling its respective products. NFTS Executive Director Jane Evans deposited a Uniongram in the cornerstone of the UAHC headquarters on Fifth Avenue at its dedication in 1951, and when global communication went viral at century's end, Uniongrams hit cyberspace as email, with proceeds from sales remaining a significant factor in WRJ's ongoing YES (Youth, Education and Special Projects) Fund. Indeed, the Uniongram is a standard bearer of Reform Judaism in the same way that the Girl Scout cookie is one of the touchstones of twentieth-century American culture.

By Alexis Rothschild My journey to Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ) and the “Award Winning” Sisterhood of Temple Sholom in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, is very recent, though my involvement with the Jewish community has been lifelong. I grew up in what I considered to be a very religious family. I am the third generation of Reform Jews in my family. We celebrated Shabbat weekly, rejoiced in the Holy Days and shared the festivals with family and friends. I attended weekly religious school, celebrated my confirmation, was active in my temple youth group and attended URJ Olin-Sang-Ruby Camp Institute. I follow in the footsteps of my parents; emulating their love, their commitment to volunteerism, and their devotion to Judaism I have belonged to a temple all my adult life because it was instilled in me that it was important to support Jewish life through your synagogue. I was a youth group leader, became a congregational teacher, and founded a small URJ congregation in Edmonton, Alberta. I have been involved in temple leadership including serving on religious school, social action and senior rabbi search committees. Each time, I gained skills that have given me patience and increased my ability to be a team player.

by Abigail Fisher “See, I set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity” (Deuteronomy 30:15) That we, as Jews, believe in some type of free will seems clear. If we hadn’t already grasped that concept now, this verse, and others like it in Deuteronomy (see for example Deuteronomy 11:26), make our ability to choose abundantly clear. We can choose to keep our end of the covenant and follow God’s commandments, in which case we will live and prosper, or we can choose not to, and suffer and die. One might think such a stark choice is not a free choice at all, but given how often the Israelites choose in subsequent books not to follow God, we seem to definitely have the ability to choose for ourselves—and to suffer the consequences of our choices.

As you may have seen in the news, there has been recent activity regarding plans to provide space at the Kotel (Western Wall) where non-Orthodox Jews can worship according to their own customs.

By Rabbi Daniel Burkeman Kol Yisrael aravim zeh bazeh – All Israel are responsible one for another. In the Talmud, where this line originally appears, it is in the context of transgressing the commandments of Torah. The line suggests that we need to be vigilant not just about our own actions, but also in preventing others from sinning. However, outside of the Talmud this line has become a rallying cry and reminder of our positive obligations and responsibility for Jews, not just in our own communities, but wherever we might find them. When we protested for the Jews trapped in the Soviet Union, when we celebrated the rescue of the Ethiopian Jews and when today we battle against anti-Semitism across the globe we understand and fulfill this imperative.

Onto the Land of Milk and Honey... A gift of honey arrived today from my good friend, Fritzi. She is wishing me a Sweet New Year but with that wish I am reminded that a sweet new year does not always come magically. This was a new fundraiser for Women of Temple Sinai this year, brought to us by Fritizi. I feel especially honored to be receiving this from her and I now realize it will be a sweetness that will last the whole year.

By Rabbi Marla Feldman Among WRJ’s most prominent accomplishments has been elevating the voice of women in the religious and spiritual realms. When NFTS was established in 1913, women could not serve on congregational boards or in Reform Movement leadership. They had no recognized role in crafting the language of prayer, creating Movement liturgy or leading worship. In most congregations, women were not even permitted on the bima. Over the course of the past hundred years, NFTS and WRJ worked vigorously to advocate for the changes that would bring women fully into the religious life of the community, tackling one major hurdle at a time, seeking transformation from within. In 1948, NFTS published its first Book of Prayers to provide ‘fitting language’ and ‘rich poetry of devotion’ for women’s spiritual expression. In 1993, WRJ published the first of its Covenant Book Series, Covenant of the Heart, followed by Covenant of the Soul (2000), Covenant of the Spirit (2005), and, in honor of its Centennial, Covenant of the Generations (2013). Written by women for women, the prayers, poems, and meditations in these volumes speak to the joys, struggles, desires, blessings and sacred journeys of women throughout the generations. The Covenant Book collections reflect the timeless need of women to share their spiritual yearnings and personal prayers in their own voice.