Join Tzedek Chicago for High Holidays 5786

To register for Tzedek Chicago’s High Holidays, click here.

This New Year, our Tzedek Chicago community will once again gather for the High Holidays. Guided by our core values of justice, solidarity and transformation, we will collectively take stock of our actions, acknowledge what is broken and commit to a different way – deep, systemic, change in our lives and our world. As ever, Tzedek will be offering abundant opportunities for community, prayer, song, learning, contemplation and calls to action. Together, we will recommit ourselves to building the world we know is possible.

HIGH HOLIDAYS 5786 — Full Schedule

Please Note: Masks are required for all indoor events at Tzedek Chicago. For more information, please read our COVID policy. N95 masks will be provided at all indoor services.

Rosh Hashanah | Tuesday, September 23

9:00am-10:00am CT: Family Program (in-person at LVPC)

10:00am CT: Morning Service (register by September 22 at 12 PM)

2:00pm CT: Tashlich at the Bill Jarvis Migratory Bird Sanctuary (in-person and open to the public)

Erev Yom Kippur | Wednesday, October 1

7:00pm CT: Kol Nidre (register by September 30 at 12pm)

Yom Kippur Day | Thursday, October 2

9:00am-10:00am CT: Family Program (in-person at LVPC)

10:00am CT: Morning Service (register by October 1 at 12pm)

2:00pm CT: Yom Kippur Afternoon Learning

5:00pm CT: Yizkor/Neilah

Sukkah Build | Sunday, October 5

10:00am-12:00pm CT: In-person at LVPC

Click here to register

Shabbat Sukkot | Friday, October 10

5:00pm CT: Hybrid Event

Sukkah Takedown | Sunday, October 12

3:00pm-5:00pm CT: In-person at LVPC

Click here to register

VOLUNTEER

Please consider volunteering to support Tzedek Chicago’s High Holiday programming. Volunteer opportunities include greeting, hosting Zoom rooms, distributing service supplies, and set up and clean up. Click here for a full list of volunteer opportunities and to sign up to support. For questions, please email Carol Muskin, Events Committee Chair, at cmuskin@gmail.com.

Tzedek Chicago is a global community, and people will join us in-person and online from around the world. Tzedek Chicago members are invited to fill out this form if you are interested in hosting an out-of-town guest for the holidays.

FAMILY PROGRAMMING

From 9:00-10:00am CT on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, please join us for mixed ages family programming for a variety of holiday-related programming, including song, arts and crafts, and more. This program will take place in Third Space.

Note: Family programming will conclude at 10:00am CT when morning services begin. Tzedek Chicago will not provide childcare during Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur services. Third Space will be closed, but the living room next to the sanctuary is open and available for rest and play throughout services.

TASHLICH

It's time to cast away the crumbs* of the year gone by and lighten our spirits to prepare for the work of the new year. Immediately following Rosh Hashanah morning services, we will gather at the door of Lake View Presbyterian to walk together towards the Bill Jarvis Migratory Bird Sanctuary (a ten minute walk from Lake View Presbyterian Church). From there, we'll walk together to the lakefront for our Tashlich service— just look for the Tzedek Chicago signs!

*Because bread is not healthy for birds, fish and other wildlife, click here for some creative, bread-free Tashlich suggestions.

TZEDAKAH

The root of the word “tzedakah” (צְדָקָה) is tzedek, or justice. Tzedek Chicago will support two tzedakah campaigns this High Holidays.

For In-Person attendees: Lake View Presbyterian Church and Tzedek Chicago are hosting a soup drive to help provide food for our neighbors. Between September 28 and October 12 Nourishing Hope will have collection barrels in the church and Third Space for your contributions. Please bring only the following sealed, non-expired, high need items: Soup, chili, canned pastas, boxed macaroni and cheese.

For Virtual and In-Person attendees: Tzedek Chicago is supporting the Rabbis for Ceasefire in their High Holidays effort to raise $180,000 for the Gaza Soup Kitchen before Yom Kippur. The cost of the Gaza Soup Kitchen’s operations is $15,000 per day to run seven kitchens throughout Gaza. This effort would ensure the kitchens are functional every day of aseret yimei teshuvah, the ten days of repentance. Click here to give.

YOM KIPPUR AFTERNOON LEARNING

Tzedek Chicago will offer four programs on Yom Kippur afternoon. All programs begin at 2 pm CT. All afternoon programs are free and open to the public.

*Please note program start times may be delayed up to 30 minutes due to length of Yom Kippur services.

Report Back from the West Bank with Member Nikki Morse

Virtual | (Register Here)

At this time of reflection and collective atonement, how must we as anti-Zionist Jews show up for Palestinians in the West Bank who are being ethnically cleansed by Israel? In this report back from the West Bank, Tzedek member Nikki Morse will discuss their recent trip to Palestine to do protective presence work with the International Solidarity Movement. The presentation will include stories and lessons from the ground, and participants will be invited to grapple collectively with some of the spiritual questions that emerged from Nikki's experience. We'll close with discussion of the asks that Palestinians in the West Bank are making of anti-Zionist Jews in the diaspora.

Nikki Morse is a member of Tzedek Chicago, an educator, and an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace and the International Solidarity Movement. Their most recent trip to Palestine was in July 2025, when they were placed for a month in the Jordan Valley.

Learning about Immigrant Action Opportunities with Sanctuary Working Group

In-Person: Meet in the living room directly next to the sanctuary at Lake View Presbyterian Church

Text Study: Claiming Your Divine Name with Rabbi Lesley Pearl

In-Person: Meet on the 2nd floor “Fireplace Room”

In his 2005 book "Be Still and Get Going," Rabbi Alan Lew (z'l) writes, "The angel of God tells Jacob that the very thing he can't stand about himself -- the very thing no one can stand about him -- is in fact his divine name." The name Israel -- the one who wrestles with God -- celebrates Jacob's dissatisfaction with the world as it is, is his "super power." Lew suggests the most significant moment of personal transformation occurs "when we realize that the thing about ourselves we have been avoiding, the thing we hate to see, is the very thing that makes us unique, that gives us unique power as human beings." Join Rabbi Lesley Pearl for an exploration of Jewish texts -- both ancient and contemporary -- that wrestle with questions of personality, human nature, "What if the worst thing about you, was the best thing about you?" and how we each might claim our Divine Name.

Rabbi Lesley Pearl is a 2025 graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. She is the Jewish Chaplain at Villanova University, outside of Philadelphia, and a member of Tzedek Chicago.

Discussion with Benjamin Balthaser on his new book, "Citizens of the Whole World: Anti-Zionism and the Cultures of the American Jewish Left"

HYBRID EVENT | In-Person: Meet in the sanctuary | Virtual

Citizens of the Whole World traces a 100 year American Jewish left-wing resistance to Zionism, from the "red decade" of the 1930s, the anti-imperialist uprising of the New Left, to the moment we are in now, in which religious, community, and cultural organizations are rebuilding a new form of Jewish praxis in the U.S. with opposition to Zionism as its founding principle. While American Jewish life has changed over the last century, many of the critiques of Zionism as well as forms of historical memory and cultural identifications remain if not consistent, with a kind of continuity.  Tzedek-Chicago, along with Jewish Voice for Peace and other anti-Zionist Jewish institutions are part of a long tradition, one about which we will be in discussion.