If you grew up going to synagogue, the term “temple sisterhood” likely conjures up images of ladies arranging a speakers’ series, hosting a challah bake and mahjong night, perhaps collecting recipes for a sisterhood cookbook. While temple sisterhoods do these things and more, the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods (NFTS) — rebranded in 1993 as Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ) — also has a long legacy of philanthropy.
NFTS began fundraising and grantmaking in 1913 to support Hebrew Union College, the Reform movement’s seminary for rabbis and cantors (and the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas). By 1923, NFTS had raised enough money for the college to begin supporting other Jewish organizations. Today, WRJ’s philanthropic arm, called the YES Fund (Youth, Education and Special Projects) distributes about $300,000 each year, often to repeat grantees, generally for specific programs or scholarships, rather than for general operating funds.
“Folks know of us as the women’s group or for our advocacy efforts on a wide variety of women and gender issues. One of the ways that we express our values of social justice and tikkun olam is through grantmaking,” said Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch, CEO of WRJ. “I think of philanthropy as one of the best kept secrets of what we do.”
This year’s grantees
The YES Fund just announced its 2024/2025 grantees, 29 organizations and programs in its three main categories, plus a relatively new pathway: diversity, equity and inclusion. Grantees in general are groups focused on supporting Jewish leaders and trailblazers, and advancing Reform and progressive institutions. Under the education pathway, this includes $60,000 to Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion for scholarship support, another $14,000 for HUC-JIR’s Israel Rabbinic Program, and grants to several groups supporting female religious and educational leaders.
A new education grantee this year, Ecole Rabbinique de Paris, a rabbinical school in France, will use its $5,000 grant to support the training of progressive rabbis, cantors and educators. “This was one I was really moved by and honored to support in light of growing antisemitism in France,” Hirsch said. “It was the first rabbinic school I know of in the world founded and established by a woman rabbi. There’s not a specific requirement by us that a grantee be led by a woman or have a women’s empowerment angle, but that is always compelling to us, and so many of the programs end up having a focus on that.”
Hirsch, by the way, was a recipient of a WRJ scholarship when she was at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s New York campus. “I did not know the breadth of the impact of their role in so many things that shaped my life and my path,” she said. “It was so core to my story and why I so feel lucky to do the work I’m doing, because I am able to give back in that way.”
DEI as a new pathway
Hirsch said she’s particularly excited about WRJ’s DEI grantmaking. WRJ awarded nine DEI grants in this round of funding, both to new organizations and to existing grantees. These include the Lunar Collective’s Asian Jewish Community Fellowship and Jewtina, which has a mission to nurture Latin-Jewish community, connection and leadership.
Founded by Analucía Lopezrevoredo in 2019, Jewtina reaches out to people who identify both as Jewish and as Latin-American. This could mean Jewish people born south of the border or whose parents were, those with one Jewish parent and one from Latin America, people adopted from Latin America by Jewish families, and converts and enthusiasts. The nonprofit grew out of Lopezrevoredo’s own experience of feeling like there weren’t a lot of places where “Latin Jewish” people — the term she uses — could show up fully with both identities. “Often, they’ve had to choose between those two spaces. This is really wanting to say that they are intertwined,” she said. “There are a lot of assumptions around who’s a Jew.”
As a 2020 survey by Pew Research Center shows, some 17% of U.S. Jews live in households with at least one person who is Black, Hispanic, Asian, or “some other, non-white race or ethnicity, or multiracial.” And the newly elected president of Mexico is of Jewish ancestry — a first in the predominantly Catholic country.
Jewtina offers everything from holiday gatherings, monthly dinners and film screenings to classes, conversations and a leadership development fellowship. It will use its $7,500 to help support its new Rabbinic Council, which aims to connect Latin Jewish people in the U.S. to the (relatively small number) of Latin rabbis in the U.S. for pastoral care, education and mentorship. “Another big goal is to inspire more Latin Jews to rise to the rabbinate, to think about themselves as rabbinic leaders,” Lopezrevoredo said. “Most Latin Jewish rabbis in the world are serving in Latin America and most come from one of two schools in Argentina, which are great schools — and only 10% of those rabbis are women. We want to inspire more women to think about their lived experience as valuable to the cohort of rabbis in North America, as well.”
For Hirsch, supporting organizations like Jewtina is one way to “open the doors” of Judaism to more people. “We’re proud to be among the earliest funders of these organizations. I continue to be excited that we have the ability to support the legacy Reform movement and to build up this pathway for this DEI focus,” she said.
Addressing the war in Gaza
The October 7 attack by Hamas and ongoing war did not change this year’s selection of grantees in its four main areas, but WRJ did extend the application deadline for groups affected by it. Hirsch also reached out to grantee partners within days of the attack to find out what they needed and put through emergency grant requests. “We wanted to be able to respond specifically to them, off-cycle, which we can do in unique circumstances and did around the war in Ukraine,” she said.
Emergency grants in the wake of the Hamas attack include $20,000 to the Israel Movement for Progressive and Reform Judaism (IMPJ) — the Israeli counterpart to the Reform movement in the U.S. — to help relocate families who had been living along the Gazan border, support rabbinic needs due to the surge of funerals, and support women’s empowerment circles. As David Bernstein of IMPJ said by email, “In the case of the emergency following October 7th, they were the first Reform organization to ‘come to the plate’ and respond.”
WRJ also gave a $10,000 emergency grant to Hebrew Union College’s Jerusalem campus to facilitate mental and spiritual care for students and faculty, and another $10,000 to the Jewish Women’s Collective Response Fund to support Israeli women in raising their voices in Israeli society and government.
In this moment of widespread international condemnation surrounding the war in Gaza, WRJ has stayed primarily focused on its core concern: issues that affect women. This includes supporting people’s access to abortion care in states where they don’t have it, advocating for pay equity and racial justice in the U.S. — and also condemning sexual assault and rape as a tool of war and fighting for an open, pluralistic society in Israel.
As Hirsch wrote about her recent visit to the White House to represent WRJ and the Reform movement, “Within days following the October 7th attacks, Women of Reform Judaism was one of the first in North America to speak out against the gender-based violence. In line with our legacy, we unequivocally believe all victims of sexual violence and rape. We believe Israeli women. We believed them from the start of the war, and we continue to believe them.”
The Reform Movement’s response to the war has been nuanced, said Hirsch. “We are on-record as being in conflict with the current Israeli government. We have joined in the protest movement, which was going on before October 7,” she said. “Our values are Reform, progressive and liberal. We are on the lookout for women’s rights, equity and extremism everywhere.”
“It’s always important that in the same moment that we say we care about the return of the Israeli hostages and for everyone to live in peace, we do not want innocent Gazans to be killed,” said Hirsch. “Everyone was created in the image of God, and we find all life sacred. It deeply pains all of us that this conflict is going on.”
