Dear WRJ friends,

Winter will soon merge with spring. Sisterhoods are activating committees that look to the future while continuing the plans of the current programmatic year. A word or two about those future plans…

1. Budget:  As your budget committee meets, please include line items that reflect your affiliation with WRJ:  your WRJ dues, your district dues, and your commitment to the YES Fund.  Those of us in San Diego heard Rabbi Walter Homolka’s poignant message that said today Germany has a dynamic progressive seminary in a burgeoning Jewish community because WE CARED!  WRJ cared enough to support a young German seminarian who had the vision and determination to rebuild Jewish life in Germany.   We supported that young man who was a recipient of YES Fund overseas rabbinic scholarship monies.  Rabbi Homolka is now the rector at the Abraham Geiger Kolleg, the seminary in Germany akin to HUC-JIR in North America. If you have not previously made a sisterhood commitment to this core fund, the WRJ YES Fund, please learn about it on this website and ask your sisterhood to become a supporter.  Through the YES Fund, WRJ ensures the future of Reform (or progressive) Judaism around the world for all the generations that will come after us.
   
   
2. Leadership:  Nominating committees should be functioning from the moment someone says yes in order to seek and train the next woman who will accept a leadership role for the following term. Offer your nominating committee gentle guidance before they deliberate. Tell them what women have accomplished and how they have met their responsibilities. Furthermore, enable women to accept positions of responsibility by preparing them with leadership training.  Send your leaders, especially rising leaders, to WRJ events such as the Sisterhood Leadership Conference (January 23-25, 2009 in New Orleans) and district events (check your district calendars and websites) where women experience hands-on opportunities and programming about leadership.  Create a line item in the sisterhood budget that sends women to these events.  They will return energized, with an enlarged set of personal skills to help them lead.

3.  Celebrations:  We tend to give lip service to celebrating our accomplishments but too often, we get busy with the daily details and forget to celebrate sisterhood’s triumphs.  Plan an event where you toast your sisterhood year.  Acknowledge those who have generously given time and talent to make your activities a success.  Thank your members for being supportive.  And, make sure that every member of the congregation knows all that sisterhood has done to enhance life in your synagogue during this past year – financially, emotionally, and through a huge commitment of volunteer hours. 

Thank you for all that you do locally and for your commitment to WRJ. Together, our world is improved through the work of our mitzvot.

Rosanne Selfon