Our Safety, Respect, Equity Team

Mishkan Chicago is dedicated to creating a space for Jewish spiritual practice and community building that is both safe and brave, that invites people to bring all of themselves, and to be part of something bigger than themselves. If you are a Mishkan community member, visitor or staff-member and you believe that you have been subject to abuse (physical, emotional, sexual, spiritual or any other kind) or another violation of our community norms, values and guidelines by someone at a Mishkan event, class, public-space gathering or home-hosted gathering and wish to disclose this, you may bring your complaint to any member of the Safety, Respect, Equity Team (SRE). 

This procedure and policy was developed in consultation with Sacred Spaces and Jewish Child and Family Services. This policy may be updated according to best practices in the field, as those practices evolve.

Our reporting policy

Formal complaints will be received by all members of Mishkan’s Safety, Respect, Equity Team (SRE), which is composed of Mishkan’s Executive Director and two community members at large (currently Jess Levine and Judith Miller). The community members at large will serve staggered two year terms on the SRE Team and will receive training in abuse and harassment prevention, information-gathering procedures and trauma-informed response. Mishkan’s Board President and Founder/Senior Rabbi are ex officio members of the SRE without voting power and will also receive all formal complaints. If any members or ex officio members of the SRE have a conflict of interest they will be recused from the information-gathering and determination process and will not receive further updates on the status of the report. 

In addition to receiving complaints, SRE will support complainants and respondents by providing referrals to social services and other supports. 

You can email our SRE team here: [email protected].

Disclosure & reporting

Individuals can disclose a complaint of abuse or violation of Mishkan’s community norms and guidelines to any member of SRE. If the complainant wishes to register a formal complaint, they must fill out an Incident Reporting Form. Proof or direct knowledge of a behavior or incident is not necessary to make a formal complaint. If a member of SRE receives a complaint of an egregious nature, be it formally through the incident reporting form or informally through conversation, they have a responsibility to the community to take additional steps.

Click here to view our full Reporting Policy.