New URJ Sports Camp Opens Next Summer: On June 22, 2010, the URJ camp 6 Points Sports Academy will open on the American Hebrew Academy’s 115-acre campus (with a 22-acre lakefront) in Greensboro, North Carolina. At this new Jewish camp (made possible by the Jim Joseph Foundation and the Foundation for Jewish Camp), a team of elite college-level athletes and coaches will offer young people two weeks of specialized athletic training at AHA’s state-of-the-art sports facility; in addition, they’ll experience the best elements of traditional Jewish summer camp. To learn more about the camp, visit www.urjcamps.org. To find out about enrollment and available staff positions, contact Camp Director Randy Colman at rcolman@urj.org, (212) 650-4070.

Cantor Campership Concerts: Recognizing that children who attend a Jewish camp are more than twice as likely as other Jews to maintain their Jewish identity and to join synagogues in adulthood (2000-2001 National Jewish Population Survey), the American Conference of Cantors (ACC) and the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) have established an ACC Campership Fund which offers children in Reform congregations scholarships towards attendance at URJ summer camps. To raise the funds, ACC members will perform in a series of benefit concerts this December (URJ campership month) across North America; visit www.urj.org, www.accantors.org, or www.urjcamps.org for a concert happening near you.

New Sisterhood Organization in Israel: Fifteen Reform congregations in Israel have joined Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ), becoming part of the brand-new affiliate WRJ-Israel. To build bridges between Jewish women in the Diaspora and Israel, join the WRJ twinning program; for more information email Resa Davids, rsdavids@gmail.com.  

Women’s Commentary Accorded Top Prize: The Torah: A Women's Commentary (WRJ and URJ Press) has received the Everett Family Foundation Jewish Book of the Year award. More than 100 women theologians, historians, sociologists, scholars, anthropologists, poets, rabbis, and cantors contributed to the volume edited by Dr. Tamara Eskenazi and Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss.

New Resources on Judaism & Transgender Issues: Rabbi Elliot Kukla (HUC-JIR class of 2006) and other activists have launched Transtorah.org, a resource for the Jewish community on transgender issues. In addition, he and Reuben Zellman, a HUC-JIR student, have designed TransTexts: Exploring Gender in Jewish Sacred Texts, a guide to exploring transgender and intersex issues with commentaries written by Jewish scholars from ancient times to the present day.