Bring Your Words to Life: Making Online Worship Accessible
I write about International Day of Persons with Disabilities (December 3, 2021) as a quadriplegic wheelchair user and as a Jewish woman accustomed to advocating for physical inclusion in places of worship. I am all too familiar with common barriers to access and have offered potential solutions.
RJ Web Builder: A Valuable Benefit of Being a URJ Congregation
The Union for Reform Judaism makes it easy for all member congregations to have a website. RJ Web Builder 3.0, a WordPress-based platform, lets you and your congregation develop and maintain a free professional website. Here's what some of our webmasters had to say about their experiences.
Reflecting on Transgender Awareness Week in 2021
Transgender Awareness Week is a chance to educate the public. It is important for people who are not part of the trans community to understand the oppression transgender and gender-expansive people face every day. While it is always important to affirm trans identities, Transgender Awareness Week provides an opportunity to center the voices of trans and gender-expansive people.
How to Respond to Antisemitism Using the URJ-ADL Resources
The ADL's educational and training capabilities are now at the service of our more than 850 URJ constituent synagogues and over one million congregants through a groundbreaking partnership between URJ and ADL.
Then There Were 10: A Lesson in Growing a Temple Youth Group Leadership Training Retreat
Aaron Wiener, youth director at Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, brought together 10 congregations and youth groups from California for an in-person Temple Youth Group Leadership Training Retreat and it was a huge success.
A Summer of Healing, Happiness, and Hope
This past summer, our 15 URJ camps across North America and Israel programs provided the space where more than 11,000 children, teens and young adults could breathe free. Summer 2021 was clearly a summer of healing at our camps, as children returned to immersive in-person living, learning, laughing, crying, hugging where they can share their fears and dreams in a loving and accepting environment.
What is the Right Dues Model for My Congregation?
One of the requests we frequently get from congregational leaders, even more so since the onset of Covid-19, is for clarification about emerging revenue structures of Reform congregations. In particular, many want to understand the existing dues models. In this post, we highlight in broad strokes the dominant dues models, and then lay out some questions we believe leaders need to consider if they are thinking of adjusting or changing their current model.
Have We Gone Too Far With Visual Tefilah?
Visual Tefilah is an invaluable tool. Some congregations have used it for years, and during the pandemic it has become much more prevalent in our prayer spaces.
Hineini-Here I Am: Join Our Racial Justice Campaign
In response to the current racial reckoning as well as to centuries of oppression and systemic racism towards Black and Brown people in this country, on April 28, 2021, the Reform Movement launched a Racial Justice Campaign. Learn about this campaign and how you can join in these efforts.
An Important Update for Our URJ Community
A message from Rabbi Rick Jacobs and Jennifer Brodkey Kaufman.