Mishkan Chicago

The Torah describes the Mishkan as a tent ancient Israelites carried with them through the desert, creating holy space whenever and wherever they stopped to gather in it. Thousands of years later, the members of Mishkan Chicago are still a wandering people, using unconventional spaces across Chicago to gather and worship. The independent spiritual community (a cofounder of the Jewish Emergent Network) is reimagining and reinvigorating Judaism by engaging, educating, empowering, and inspiring people through dynamic experiences of Jewish prayer, music, learning, social activism, and community building. Its signature services are large, high-energy gatherings of 200-plus Chicagoans for Shabbat and every major Jewish holiday that create accessible spaces for spiritual, intellectual, and social connectivity.

What’s the secret sauce to the demographically diverse, creative, and inspired membership? Mishkan hits the sweet spot at the intersection of Jewish spirituality and engagement work. It is radically inclusive and intentionally accessible to people of all backgrounds, meeting people where they are locationally, financially, socially, and spiritually. It provides meditation alongside traditional prayer, holds programs in diverse neighborhoods, makes Judaism financially viable for young adults on a budget, and “does Jewish” in ways that reach a multigenerational audience. MishkanX allows community members to create programs and initiatives, like intimate pop-up Shabbat dinners. These volunteers help to create Jewish experiences in neighborhoods across Chicago, most of which have no organizational Jewish support. Mishkan partners with more than 40 local and national institutions, ranging from synagogues of all denominations and social-justice organizations to local arts and performance groups. This past year, its justice team formed key partnerships with four organizations working to end social, racial, and economic injustice. These groups include the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which helped Mishkan become the first Jewish community in Chicago to resettle two refugee families from Syria and Iraq and build the Refugee Welcome Team, and the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, with whom it works to address local justice issues in Chicago. Mishkan’s members may be wandering, but they are doing so with purpose.