This Saturday marks Juneteenth, a holiday commemorating June 19, 1865, the day the enslaved people in Galveston, Texas learned that slavery had been abolished, a full two years after the Emancipation Proclamation and six months before the passage of the 13th Amendment. Indeed, while Juneteenth is largely a day of celebration, embedded in its history […]
Mishkan Chicago is proud to announce our partnership with Edot HaMidwest: The Midwest Regional Jewish Diversity Collaborative. Mishkan is the inaugural member of the newly formed Edot Synagogue Partnership, a Program that focuses on training and coaching synagogues to strengthen Jewish diversity and Jewish racial justice. Edot Midwest Regional Jewish Diversity Collaborative is a set […]
From Ash Levine When I first read this portion, I was deeply uncomfortable with the portrait it painted. Korach and his collaborators were living in a difficult moment. The Israelites had just learned that they wouldn’t be permitted to enter the promised land in their lifetimes. Moses had sole political leadership of the community, and […]
From Catherine Miller Shabbat shalom everyone. I’m excited to be on the “other side” of this Friday night shabbat stream for the first time. Now, I don’t know about you but saying HAPPY PRIDE right now feels strange. It feels inauthentic. Not only do we have a global pandemic but we also are witnessing a […]
This spring, Mishkan welcomed a $25,000 COVID-19 Response Grant which allowed us to distribute funds to those in and beyond our community. In an effort to diversify our impact, we offered support to individuals, hospitals, healthcare workers, and vulnerable communities around Chicago — which you can read about here! But, you may remember that we also received […]
A few weeks ago, seventeen of our Mishkan community members, including members of our staff and our rabbis, took part in the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs’ racial justice training for Chicago-area congregations on a rainy Sunday, over Zoom (like all things nowadays). As a spiritual community, we had already gathered a small group back […]
By: Rabbi Jessica Lott This week we begin to read the book of Bamidbar, the 4th book of the Torah, which, in English, is called Numbers. This is because the first instruction God gives is for Moses and Aaron to conduct a census. The Israelites have come to the point in their wanderings in the […]
Mishkan welcomed a wonderful gift this last month. We received a $25,000 COVID-19 Response Grant and an additional $5,000 Anonymous Grant, which allowed us to distribute funds to those in and beyond our community during this trying time. When we thought about what would make a meaningful distribution, we realized that to have the biggest […]
As conversations begin to turn to what ‘opening things up’ will look like in the weeks and months to come, I find myself with a new anxiety around the question: “Have we learned our lesson yet, being in this little ‘time-out’ indoors? And not even in a punitive way, I’m thinking of the term yeshiva, […]