First things first, credit where it is due, I subscribe to a daily email from My Jewish Learning called, "Jewniverse" and the one today resonated such that I wanted to share it: http://thejewniverse.com/2013/the-yom-kippur-debut-of-the-girl-rabbi-of-the-golden-west/.
It is about Ray Litman Frank (1861-1948), a prominent Jewish educator, speaker, writer, and early advocate for the increased participation of women in Jewish life. I have a personal connection to her in that she was also involved in founding the first ever Hillel, which was at my alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was also involved in the local synagogue, Sinai Temple, where the library is named after her and where I taught for a few years, too.
In 1890, she was in Spokane, Washington for Yom Kippur. While there were a lot of Jews in the town, including some of means, they hadn't quite gotten it together to start a synagogue or school or any other permanent features of Jewish life there. There were too many disagreements between those of (in keeping with the usage of the times) the "orthodox persuasion" and those of the "reform".
Frank helped see to it that a service was held there for Yom Kippur at which she spoke about the importance of the factions in the community coming together for the common good.
While there are some amusing 19th century turns-of-phrase, such as Frank's use of the term "church" to describe the Jewish community as would have been commonplace then, her message rings as true for our kehillot today, more than 100 years later.
Enjoy the words of the "Maiden in the Temple", Ray Litman Frank:
http://jwa.org/sites/jwa.org/files/golearn/sermon_transcript.pdf
G'mar Chatimah Tovah,
Rabbi Benson
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