Blog

In 2000, when I was President of Beth Am Women in Los Altos Hills, California, our board was trying to decide what to do for our end-of-year event. One of our board members had previously belonged to a congregation in Massachusetts whose sisterhood had a brunch around WRJ’s YES Fund.

Maybe it is just for this moment that you find yourself in a position of leadership. Maybe?

With the generous support of a microgrant from WRJ, in September 2024, Temple B’nai Israel’s Sisterhood in Hattiesburg, MS, presented a concert of works by composers

This year, with the support of a WRJ YES Fund grant, the Jewish Women’s Archive launched the Pomegranate Writing Fellowship for Jewish Women of Color, a new model for Jewish thought leadership that centers the voices and vision of Jewish women and gender-expansive people of color as writers.

The Jewish mystical tradition, Kabbalah, teaches us that when the world was created, God’s presence filled the Earth. When God’s divine beings came into the world, God made room for us by contracting the divine light into vessels, but the vessels were too

I never imagined I would be mourning two communities that shaped my life in the same weekend. Spaces that I once valued as shelters of learning and sanctuary changed instantly into scenes of deadly gun violence.  

At Brown University, my alma mater, students

In 2022, WRJ launched “WRJ says STOP: An Initiative against Sexual Harassment and Assault.” The initiative’s goal was two-fold: (1) to help our sacred communities and congregations be proactive in reducing and even preventing the scourges of power dynamic

This piece includes details about abortion and loss of life.

 

Life is Sacred: Our Pathway to Parenthood and Community Care

When my husband, Bruce, and I married, our vows reflected a dream: to share the journey of parenthood. We embraced the hope and joy that

“If a person sits in their home and says to themselves,
‘What have the affairs of society to do with me?... Why
Should I trouble myself with the people’s voices of
protest? Let my soul dwell in peace!‘ - If one does this,
they overthrow the world.”
(Midrash Tanhuma

This week’s Torah portion is Toldot. Toldot tells the story of Rebecca and Isaac, and their twin sons, Esau and Jacob. The opening words of the parasha are profound — Rebecca is having a difficult twin pregnancy, and we get this fulsome description of her