Embracing the Women in our Community
By Shelley Lindauer

It is not up to you to finish the work,
yet you are not free to avoid it.
Pirke Avot 2:16

Ninety-three years ago our foremothers saw the wisdom of organizing women to effect change in our congregations and communities and came together to form the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, now Women of Reform Judaism. That wisdom holds true to this day. At the most recent WRJ Assembly, Rabbi Eric Yoffie said "Everything we do in congregational life is about membership ... and, if we are going to do it, it is the women who will make it happen."

Reform theology is committed to the absolute and unrestricted equality of women in all areas of Jewish life. Years before women had the right to vote, Reform women understood the power of standing together to make a difference. Within their congregations, they were empowered in advocacy, education, and community, because they were recognized as equals religiously to men.

Today, the role of women's groups within our congregations varies greatly. But at the core, our women remain passionate and committed to preserving our Jewish communities and to ensuring the future of our movement. There is a magical strength that infuses the group when our women are together, a magic not easily understood by men nor articulated by the women who experience it. That strength, that power to act for the communal good, is integral to the organizational growth and dynamism of our congregations.

One of the biggest challenges our women's groups face is membership recruitment and retention (much the same as our congregations). We need to bring women into an accepting Jewish environment where they can participate in creative programming based on their interests. We need to provide them with opportunities to build friendships within the framework of sisterhood. We need to create Jewish pathways to social and political action that will be exciting and relevant to diverse women. We need to reflect on whether we, as a group, are welcoming outsiders to our congregations and our sisterhoods. To be effective it is essential that our congregational leadership support and assist the goals of women's groups within our community.

Perhaps most importantly, our leadership needs to be attuned to the evolving community around us and aware of the changes taking place culturally and demographically within our congregations, our sisterhoods, and our local communities.

Recently, there has been a spate of articles about young women and what they want and expect from their lives. A recent New York Times article detailed young women with Ivy-League educations who say they expect to be stay-at-home moms, and perhaps come back into the work force on a part-time basis when their children begin school. Apparently, many young women have decided that it's not possible to have it all.

We don't yet know how widespread this trend is. It is probable that many women will not economically be able to make such a choice. But we do know that we need to understand the spiritual and communal needs of both types of women within our sisterhoods – there is an opportunity here for growth and connection that should not be ignored. And we must continually monitor our environment to determine what other opportunities (and threats) exist which will enhance (or impair) our congregations and sisterhoods.

According to a CBS News poll conducted this past May, an overwhelming majority of women say their opportunities to succeed in life are better than their mothers and most credit the women's movement for this. Interestingly, while nearly all the women polled said the status of women in this country has gotten better, they are divided as to whether there is still a strong need for a women's movement. And while nearly all women think the overall status of women is better today than it was 25 years ago, they still say there are more advantages in today's society to being a man than being a woman.

These findings must give us pause, to stop and think of the accomplishments of our women and ask important questions: has the women's movement taken us far enough? Have our sisterhoods taken us far enough? Have we accomplished what our foremothers set out to do in 1913? As the role of women in Reform Jewish communal life has continued to expand over the past 30 years, the role of women in American society now seems to rest on shaky ground.

The World Economic Forum, a non-profit and nonpartisan organization based in Switzerland, recently issued a report entitled "Women's Empowerment: Measuring the Global Gender Gap", which judged each country by five criteria including measures of health and well-being, economic participation and economic opportunity, political empowerment and educational attainment. The results of this study shatter the myth that the U.S. is at the top when it comes to women's empowerment and demonstrates our failure in reducing the economic gap between men and women.

What does this mean for the women engaged in Reform communal life which promotes leadership, egalitarianism, and tikkun olam? It means that we need to educate our daughters and granddaughters that they have not reached a truly equal footing in this society. Though their place in our congregations has been secured, there is still much work to be done for our women to achieve true equality.

Our mothers and grandmothers planned, organized, marched, wrote, lobbied – made their voices heard – to ensure that we would have the right to vote, that we would be protected under employment laws, that we would have every opportunity available to men, that we would have the right to control our bodies, and that we could be the rabbis and cantors in our congregations. WRJ, our sisterhoods and our congregations need to continue that work, to ensure the hard gains won by the women who came before us are gains that will be enhanced and enjoyed by future generations of women.

Our task, the legacy handed down so many years ago by women in our congregations and sisterhoods, is to ensure that we convey our Reform values both to the wider community and to future generations. It is our obligation to maintain important traditions, to continue the valuable work we do in our congregations, our local communities, our country, and around the world.

Women of Reform Judaism have a mutual dependence that unites them and gives them strength. We share a common language – no matter what our background, we understand each other. We are there for a sister in need. We are there for a congregation in need. We are there for a world in need. We are there because, as those wise women before us understood, we are stronger together.

Shelley Lindauer is Executive Director of Women of Reform Judaism.

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