Repairing the World

63rd Street Shelter

For over 25 years, every second Monday of the month, Mishkan Shalom school families and members have helped make hot meals for residents at the Eastern Delaware County Life Center at 63rd and Market Street. The center houses 50 people. Making food together as a family and delivering it to the shelter can be a rewarding experience for all

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Family Promise Philadelphia

Family Promise Philadelphia seeks to prevent and end family homelessness in Philadelphia by mobilizing congregational volunteers and community resources to meet neighbor's emergency needs (shelter, food, and clothing); and by providing continued guidance and support to achieve self-sufficiency in affordable housing. Mishkan Shalom is a member. Family Promise advocates for public policies that support employment, access to education, and affordable housing opportunities.

Immigrant and Refugee Rights Working Group

The Immigrant and Refugee Rights Working Group seeks to engage Mishkan as an institution and our individual members in the struggle for immigrant justice and refugee protection. We do this through:

• Coordinating and building upon existing efforts as a member congregation of New Sanctuary Movement;

• Supporting HIAS PA/HIAS International, mobilization and interfaith initiatives that assist refugees, asylum seekers, and those facing deportation;

• Acting as a clearinghouse and resource to provide information throughout the congregation with hands-on support activities, advocacy and direct action and protest;

• Educating ourselves and members of our congregation on immigrant and refugee rights.

Mishkan Shalom has an ongoing Immigration Working Group led by members who organize and educate within the congregation, help sponsor refugee families, work on projects with HIAS and is a proud member of the New Sanctuary Movement, an interfaith, multicultural immigrant justice organization that organizes for justice, dignity and hospitality for all, regardless of immigration status. If you are interested in being part of this group or want to be added to its email list, please contact Daniel .

Interfaith Community Building Group and Urban Resource Development Group

Members of Mishkan Shalom and St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church founded the Interfaith Community Building Group in 1997 and annually work collaboratively with other groups and people in under-resourced communities on their construction projects. The group has helped build or rebuild an African American church burned down by arsonists in Mississippi; a community center, church, houses and latrines in El Salvador through the Romero Interfaith Center and US-El Salvador Sister Cities; a post-Katrina church in New Orleans; post-Sandy church buildings in Rockaway Park, New York; post-Maria houses in Puerto Rico; and a playground on the Lakota reservation in Pine Ride, South Dakota. In addition, the ICBG has undertaken numerous Philadelphia projects, including a community Y, South Indian church, low-income housing with InnDwelling and the Urban Resources Development Corp., a mosque school, a women’s shelter, and, for Mishkan Shalom, a pond and shelving for the library and vestibule/main sanctuary spaces.

Israel/Palestine

Informed by our Statement of Principles, Israel-related programming at Mishkan Shalom evolves in relation to the needs and concerns of our community. Please check out the specific Israel/Palestine page for more information.

Interfaith Peace Walk

“…Looking into your face, I see the face of God.” (Genesis 33:10)

Mishkan Shalom participated in the annual Philadelphia Interfaith Walk for Peace and Reconciliation walking dialogues among Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs and others that ended in 2023. Since then, the Peace Walk community has organized peace and justice programs in Philadelphia for participants to share prayers, teachings, singing, and fellowship as they affirm each other’s spiritual values.

J.Proud Jewish Philly LGBTQ Consortium

J.Proud is committed to working together as a collective agent of change to raise awareness, educate, and advocate for the diverse needs of the Jewish LGBTQ community while building relationships with allies in the Greater Philadelphia area.

Power Interfaith

Mishkan Shalom is a founding and active member of POWER, a multi-faith movement that focuses on statewide and local issues of racial and economic justice in Pennsylvania. POWER is composed of more than fifty faith communities across Southeast and Central Pennsylvania, bringing together thousands of people across lines of race, class, neighborhood, faith tradition, and other differences which have kept us divided. POWER’s racial and economic justice work is organized through its five campaigns: Live Free for Criminal Justice Reform, Economic Dignity, Climate Justice and Jobs, Education Justice, and Civic Engagement.

Many Mishkan members have taken leadership roles and participated in these campaigns by, for example:

• Advocating to Philadelphia’s City Council to limit the use of cash bail for several low-level offenses;
• Collaborating with environmental and justice groups to shut down the biggest gas refinery on the east coast;,
  
• Lobbying Philadelphia’s City Council to establish a Public Bank to extend low-interest credit to the historically disenfranchised to invest in businesses, local communities, and schools;
  
• Engaging thousands of voters to participate in the 2020 and 2024 elections through voter registration and education;
  
• Launching a Full Fair Funding Campaign to call to attention to the racial disparity and inequity in the state’s education funding.
  

Sustainable Mishkan

Sustainable Mishkan members are interested in food justice, fair trade, animal welfare, and sustainability. We are working to make Mishkan a more sustainable and environmentally aware synagogue. In 2017, we earned the Hazon Seal of Sustainability.