The Sacred Circle of Sisterhood
The power and promise of Sisterhood in its first 100 years
Sisterhood women demonstrating for women’s suffrage, c.1910
Save Darfur Rally, Washington, DC, 2006
Reading from the Torah, 2011
WRJ President Lynn Magid Lazar presenting The Torah: A Women’s Commentary to President
Barack Obama, 2011
Packing toys for children, South Africa, c.1950
The Sacred Circle of Sisterhood
Women of Reform Judaism—the oldest and largest of the Union for Reform Judaism
affiliates, representing 65,000+ women in nearly 500 Reform women’s groups
worldwide—is celebrating its Centennial in 2013.
When the organization was founded in 1913 as the National Federation of Temple
Sisterhoods (NFTS), women could not even vote in national elections, much less
become rabbis, cantors, or congregational presidents. During the early years, NFTS
President Carrie O. Simon worked to encourage the Union and its congregations to
allow women on their boards, and in 1925, NFTS President Stella Freiberg became the
first woman to serve on the Union’s board. On the international stage, NFTS Executive
Director Jane Evans served as a consultant to the U.S. delegation during the San
Francisco Conference at which the United Nations charter was drafted. Using their
collective power, Sisterhood women changed the landscape of congregational life, as
well as North American and world politics.
In this RJ symposium, three WRJ leaders of different generations—Dolores Kosberg
Wilkenfeld, Lynn Magid Lazar, and Dara Amram—recount little-known stories about
how WRJ has transformed Jewish life, how Sisterhoods evolved with changing times,
why Jewish women and the Movement rely
Carrie O. Simon
Q: Why did you join Sisterhood, and what was it like when
you first got involved?
Dolores Kosberg Wilkenfeld, NFTS President 1985-89: Having come from a long line of “temple
Jews,” I joined Sisterhood to find my own spiritual home where I could make a personal
contribution. In 1957, Congregation Emanu El in Houston had an active, creative Sisterhood.
Hearing that I had worked in radio and television advertising, the incoming Sisterhood president
asked me to co-write a skit for our opening meeting, and another member asked me to help her
write the Sisterhood newsletter. Being asked to help, I immediately felt needed.
I was proud to be part of all our Sisterhood did. We served as “lay” youth advisors and supported
our youth group however we could—including standing in as emergency female counselors at our
youth group’s camp in the Texas Hill Country. Because we promoted youth activities, engaging
young people became a “front burner” issue for the congregation.
We also participated in local interfaith activities and helped activate a broad-based community
coalition on housing that resulted in the establishment of Houston’s first housing code.
Nationally, NFTS leaders had long promoted engaging young people. In 1927, NFTS Youth
Chair Jean Wise May called for developing a federation of the Young Folks Temple Leagues, which
already existed in many congregations. It took almost 15 years of NFTS persistence and interim
activity before the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now Union for Reform Judaism)
formally established the National Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY, now North American
Federation of Temple Youth), which led to the Union’s highly successful camping program. For
almost 20 years, NFTS was NFTY’s sole financial source; today, WRJ supports the Union’s work
with high school and college-age youth through our Youth-Education-Special Projects (YES) Fund.
On the international level, in 1971, I served as a NFTS convener for the first Women’s Plea for
Human Rights for Soviet Jewry, urging that Jews in the USSR be allowed either to emigrate or
practice Judaism openly in their home countries. Nowadays we have NGO representation at the
United Nations and engage in advocacy efforts on behalf of Jewish and humanitarian causes
worldwide.
For many women, including me, Sisterhood leadership served as an “entry” point to greater
participation/leadership within our congregations. Sisterhood presidents (who sat on the temple board
by virtue of their position) were often subsequently elected to the temple board in their own right.
Some later assumed the temple presidency, as I did.
Lynn Magid Lazar, WRJ President: When I joined in 1975, almost every congregation had a
Sisterhood, and almost every woman belonged to it. Our Sisterhood at Temple Beth Israel, York,
Pennsylvania had 100+ members in a congregation of fewer than 200 families. In most
communities Sisterhood women were the synagogue’s heart and hands. When our religious school
needed new desks, more teachers, help planning a Tu B’Shvat seder, etc., our principal turned to
Sisterhood. Sisterhood also “owned” the kitchen, which was nearly in constant use: breakfast
pancakes for the “shul in” senior youth group sleepover; monthly gourmet luncheon meetings;
brisket, kugel, and desserts for the Sisterhood Shabbat service dinner.
Dara Amram, WRJ Board of Directors: Based on my grandmother and mother’s experiences, I
had high expectations of Sisterhood when I joined in 2004, but it lacked the vibrancy I’d anticipated.
There hadn’t been a single Sisterhood event in three years!
I decided that if I wanted my needs met, I’d have to step up. First, though, I needed to know if our
rabbi would be behind the effort. When I asked her, “Do we need a Sisterhood?” she answered with
a resounding yes, saying that as a young child her mother always took her to Sisterhood meetings
and that a strong women’s group could do a lot for our temple. She encouraged me to help build up
the Sisterhood. I walked out of that meeting the new Sisterhood president.
In the beginning I was in my own Sisterhood bubble. Later, when I became a part of the WRJ
president’s listserv, I learned that the majority of Sisterhoods across North America shared the
same membership struggles and worked to overcome them through simple, fun social programming
planned during peak temple hours.
Q: It seems the interests and purview of Sisterhood women
changed with the times. How have Sisterhoods stayed
current?
Dolores: By the 1980s, more women were working and furthering their education, making longterm participation in Sisterhood projects less likely. We urged Sisterhoods to adjust to the new
realities by being flexible in structuring, scheduling, and programming. In a presidential speech, I
referred to the then popular commercial, “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile,” stating, “This is not
your mother’s Sisterhood. This is the new generation of Sisterhood.” Sisterhoods began to adjust
meeting times and events, to transform long-term responsibilities into “one-shot jobs” or short-term
projects, and to create new models of shared leadership and responsibility. Our vitality is testimony
to the ability of each new generation to change with the times.
Lynn: Now that women play new roles in congregational life—we are rabbis, cantors, educators,
temple presidents, and anything else we wish to be—we are able to multiply this power by the
thousands, collectively accomplishing just about anything imaginable! The quintessential example is
The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (urjbooksandmusic.com), which reshaped the arc of
Jewish history by collecting and creating women’s scholarship into the first complete commentary
on Torah written by women.
At the 1993 NFTS/WRJ assembly Cantor Sarah Sager challenged hundreds of women to
imagine a Torah commentary written by women. WRJ then convened a “pilot” weekend of
Sisterhood executive board members and women scholars to plan it, hundreds of other women
joined to implement the plan, and thousands of women—the Women of Reform Judaism—turned
the plan into reality.
One of the highlights of my life involves this commentary. At the 2011 Biennial assembly in
Washington, DC, I was one of a small group of Movement leaders invited to meet President Barack
Obama. I introduced myself as the president of Women of Reform Judaism and presented him with
the volume. President Obama looked at it carefully. Then, holding up the book, he asked the
assembled male Movement leaders, “Is this book the ‘true’ story?!” I replied that it was the story that
hasn’t been told in the last 2,000 years. “Michelle would really like this book,” he replied, to which I
added, “As will your daughters.”
Dolores: The WRJ Torah commentary has not only given “voice” to women in the context of the
Torah; it has raised the profile of women as rabbis, cantors, scholars, teachers, and students. It’s a
symbol of the evolution of Sisterhood/NFTS/WRJ commitment to Jewish education, from its earliest
years, which focused on rabbis and religious schools, to the intellectual and spiritual development of
its own women, which is also evidenced in WRJ Torah study guides, WRJ books (the Covenant
series), a WRJ-commissioned women’s Torah (Torat Nashim), and pre-Shabbat e-mail messages.
Q: Today, Jewish women have any number of opportunities for
Jewish engagement and leadership. Why do so many choose
involvement with WRJ?
Dolores: For many of the same reasons they always did—the opportunities to support meaningful
causes while also benefitting from the bonding, sharing, caring, mentoring, learning, and growing that
is characteristic of women’s groups within the special context of her spiritual home. And, because our
congregations deal in some of the most sensitive areas of people’s lives—faith, family, illness, life
and loss, etc.—so do Sisterhoods. We are there to share the laughter and tears, support and cheer,
congratulate and comfort. For 50+ years, I have been part of this “sacred circle,” and I still cherish
every moment it affords me.
Lynn: Each woman has the opportunity to grow in her own way. Some women want companionship
and connection. Others seek an entrée into more active temple life. Some want to be involved in their
children’s Jewish education. Many wish to deepen their levels of Jewish literacy. Still others are driven
to help heal our broken world, and have joined with WRJ to advocate for such important issues as civil
rights, women’s health, GLTBQ equality, and women in the rabbinate—the latter nearly two years
before anyone else in the Movement made a public statement.
I became a more literate Jew because of Sisterhood. When I grew up, my brothers studied for bar
mitzvah but I was not required to study for bat mitzvah. At Sisterhood events as an adult, I participated
in Torah study groups, unique worship services, and study sessions with fascinating teachers. Among
an encouraging community of friends, a new world of Judaism opened up for me.
Early in my WRJ board service, I was offered the honor of chanting Torah during the Biennial
Assembly. I said “no,” because I was unable to read from the Torah, and decided then and there to
become an adult bat mitzvah—for if I were ever offered such an opportunity again, I wanted to be
able to say “yes.” In 1998, I became a bat mitzvah with a class of women from my Sisterhood. And,
when I was asked again, I was ready—chanting Torah at the URJ Biennial/WRJ assembly in
Orlando in 1999.
Sisterhood opens doors through which many of us would not have otherwise entered. Our
foremothers marched for the right to vote. We helped found the Religious Coalition for Reproductive
Choice. Our foremothers taught their daughters Judaism. We study, teach, and have published a
wealth of women’s scholarship to enhance our studies, including Covenant of the Heart and
Covenant of the Soul, two books of prayers, poems, and meditations.
Q: What are other WRJ contributions to Reform Judaism?
Lynn: NFTS was solely responsible for building a dormitory on HUC’s Cincinnati campus in the early
1920s. At the time the college was a commuter school in desperate need of providing on-campus
housing for the young men studying to be American rabbis. Recognizing the importance of supporting
those who would lead our nascent American Reform movement into the future, Sisterhood
proclaimed, “We’re not building a building, we’re building Judaism!” The space is still called the
Sisterhood Dorm, although it now houses offices and has become a gathering place on campus.
In the 1930s, HUC and the UAHC asked NFTS to finance the rescue of several young, promising
Jewish students living in Germany who would study at HUC and become part of the Reform
Movement. Of course, NFTS said “Yes!” That is how W. Gunther Plaut, Herman Schaalman, Woli
Kaelter, Alfred Wolf, and Leo Lichtenberg became renowned, visionary rabbis of our Movement.
And in the late 1940s, when the UAHC planned its move from Cincinnati to New York City, NFTS
Executive Director Jane Evans scouted out the property, and NFTS became its primary funder.
Dara: WRJ continues to support a wide range of Reform projects through its YES Fund, among
them WUPJ’s NETZER youth camps in the Former Soviet Union, annual scholarships for eight
Reform rabbinic and cantorial students, a Mother-Daughter Beit Midrash, a legislative assistant at
the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and the Israel Religious Action Center’s efforts to
eliminate gender discrimination in Israel.
Q: What are the greatest challenges facing Sisterhood in its
second century, and how is WRJ positioning itself to address
them?
Lynn: One of our greatest challenges is to engage the next generation of young women who identify
as Reform Jews but do not see themselves joining traditional dues/membership organizations. We are
asking ourselves: Where are Jewish mothers of young children investing their time and energy? What
kinds of activities will involve families? What synergies exist between WRJ and other organizations
that interact with women and their families? Can we implement new membership models?
We also wish to reach out to the readers of Reform Judaism magazine. If you are a woman who is
not part of our collective voice, we invite you into the WRJ family. Join us in advocating for important
causes and supporting one another in living Jewishly connected lives. Visit wrj.org or call 866-WRJ5924 and let’s begin a conversation about welcoming you into the sacred circle of Sisterhood.
Our 2013 Centennial celebration (wrj.org/Centennial) is a huge opportunity to re-envision WRJ
and raise funds to “seed” new initiatives. Just as the women who came before us planned for a
future that would bring us to this Centennial celebration, we are now planning to ensure that our
second century is as powerful and transformative as the first.
Carrie O. Simon photo: The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, OH, americanjewisharchives.org