Mission: The Shalom Center: Spiritual Roots, Prophetic Action The Shalom Center seeks to be a prophetic voice in Jewish, multireligious, and American life. The Shalom Center equips activists and spiritual leaders with awareness and skills needed to lead in shaping a transformed and transformative Judaism that can help create a world of peace, justice, healing for the earth, and respect for the interconnectedness of all life. We weave the human experience of our own day with Jewish spiritual tools, such as sacred texts, midrash, liturgy, and ritual. We connect the experience and wisdom of the generations forged in the social, political, and spiritual upheavals of the last half-century with the emerging generation of activists, addressing with special concern the planetary climate crisis and the power configurations behind that crisis. Within this broad mission, The Shalom Center’s leadership has chosen to emphasize three approaches: 1. The Shalom Center seeks to reunify political action and spiritual search. We consistently reframe social action as the expression of spiritual commitment, drawing on the celebration of festivals, life-cycle ceremonies, and daily practice in ways that move and change the wider society. 2. The Shalom Center focuses on issues and alternatives that other organizations are not addressing—a pioneering, prophetic approach. Sometimes this has meant becoming the “tugboat” that can nudge larger organizational vessels in new directions; sometimes it has meant becoming a “seed-bed,” nurturing ideas that sprout and flower in other fields. 3. When The Shalom Center addresses a specific issue -- like climate crisis, or the Iraq war, or the systematic combination of disemployment and overwork, or spiritual emptiness -- our approach is deep and systemic, looking beneath the specific issue to the power dynamics that have shaped it. Jewish tradition underlines this question through the archetypal story of Pharaoh: enslavement, xenophobia and damage to the earth (the plagues) are rooted in Pharaoh’s addiction to his own top-down, unaccountable power. For example, in our pre-Passover message in February, 2008, we invited members of the Jewish community to deepen their understanding of the holiday by considering “Who or what is Pharaoh in our world today, bringing eco-disastrous plagues upon our heads? Can we face the Pharaohs who are turning the great round earth itself into a narrow place—Mitzrayim (the Hebrew word for Egypt, which actually means ‘Tight and Narrow Spaces’)?” Underlying Institutional Values Success means activating and mobilizing the broadest possible range of individuals and organizations to work for healing of the earth and our societies. We reject expanding the organization for expansion’s sake, creating additional infrastructure that is expensive and time-consuming to support; all additional expenditures and initiatives should be justified by results. Partnership is our main modality: by joining hands with other organizations, we can multiply everyone’s effectiveness and do more with less. Criteria for Setting Priorities We prioritize projects according to three criteria: (1) Catalytic opportunities. If we don’t do a particular piece of work that needs doing, will anyone else? Can The Shalom Center be a catalyst in this area? (2) Strategic partnerships. Is there a strategic opportunity to inspire and attract others to focus on the issue? Are there potential partners who can be activated if we take early steps? (3) Resources. Are the resources available to support a level of work that will be inspiring and catalytic? Current Programs Currently, two major program priorities drive The Shalom Center: (1) Addressing the Global Climate Crisis, especially drawing on Jewish and other religious teachings about shaping a sustainable society; coping with the problems created by unacccountable concentrations of corporate and government power in making change difficult; and working on these issues with special concern for those most vulnerable and most hurt as the climate crisis unfolds. The Shalom Center has sought to connect household and congregational hands-on “greening” with advocacy toward reshaping public policy. (2) Addressing unjust and destructive concentrations of political and economic power in the hyper-wealthy and in giant global corporations — power that corrupts democracy, including elections, and delivers enormous “benefits” to those who wield the power while depriving the poor, the aged, the sick, the middle class, and large numbers of women of ways to meet their individual and social needs.
Year Established
1983
Reach
Regional, National or International
Focus of Work
Advocacy / Policy
Primary Service
Ready-made resources (blogs, curriculum, sermon materials)
My Featured Cause 1
Climate crisis
My Featured Cause 2
corporate domination
Website
The Shalom Center
The Shalom Center blogged Biblical Ecology & Economics for the 21st (or 59th) Century
Rabbi Arthur Waskow * The US and the world are struggling with both economic and ecological crises –- and most people see them as unconnected. In the secular “social justice” world, many organizations ignore ecological issues. In the secular “environmental” world, many organizations ignore issues like unemployment or income inequality. In the religious world, the most audible voices in American Christianity affirm an economics of minimal re...more...
The Shalom Center status: Biblical Ecology & Economics for the 21st (or 59th) Century
Rabbi Arthur Waskow * The US and the world are struggling with both economic and ecological crises –- and most people see them as unconnected. In the secular “social justice” world, many organizations ignore ecological issues. In the secular “environmental” world, many organizations ignore issues like unemployment or income inequality. In the religious world, the most audible voices in American Christianity affirm an economics of minimal re...more...
The Shalom Center blogged White House Arrests; Bitter Herb, Matzah, & Healing Climate
Yesterday (March 21, 2013), along with 14 other religious folk, clergy and committed "laity," I was arrested for standing at the White House with Bitter Herb and Matzah, signs and songs, reciting the names of more than 100 people who had been killed by one result of the climate crisis: Superstorm Sandy. The action was organized by Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, of which The Shalom Center is a vigorously active member. We were calling on the president to ac...more...
The Shalom Center blogged Pray-in for Climate at White House -- Tuesday January 15
Call To Action: A Pray-in For the Climate Dear Friends, We are facing a Climate Cliff, and we are calling upon religious and spiritual leaders, other believers and all people of good will to join us to address its danger by participating in “A Pray-in for the Climate” in front of the White House on Tuesday, January 15, 2013. Super-storm Sandy, the drastic droughts in our corn country, record-breaking Arctic ice melt, and unheard-of floods in Vermont, let al...more...
The Shalom Center blogged Climate Action at White House on Jan 15
Acting for The Shalom Center, I have been named to the steering committee of Interfaith Moral Action on Climate (IMAC ). IMAC has a major project under way that may be especially interesting to environmentally committed members of the Jewish community. IMAC is planning a prayerful gathering the afternoon of January 15 at the White House to call on the President to take five steps on the climate crisis: 1. Permanently refuse permits for the XL Tar Sands pipeline,...more...
The Shalom Center created a new resource called Shalom Letter Resources for Parashat Noach from the Shalom Center
For a discussion and midrash on the Flood and the Rainbow from my book Godwrestling -- Round 2 (Jewish Lights, 1996), please click to https://theshalomcenter.org/node/1842 . In it I report work The Shalom Center did in the early 1980s to persuade synagogues to set aside the 27th of Iyyar – in biblical tradition the day when the Rainbow came – as a day to address the danger of global disaster and the ways for us to deal with it. For a video on...more...
The Shalom Center created a new resource called Eicha for the Earth: Guidelines for a Ceremony of Celebration, Lament, & Action
Woven by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, The Shalom Center For more resources, click here Tisha B'Av (the midsummer day of Jewish mourning for the ancient Temples in Jerusalem, and of hope for a transformed future) can be focused on the endangered Earth as today the Temple of all peoples, all life-forms. What follows is the text of how such an Earth-centered prayerful process could have these themes: I. Celebration of the Earth; II Lament for the Earth; &...more...
The Shalom Center created a new resource called Printable PDF New Freedom Seder for the Earth
Printable PDF New Freedom Seder for the Earth, with full-color graphic cover! The Shalom Center has created a 40th Anniversary New Interfaith Freedom Seder for the Earth to help us free ourselves from the greatest dangers of our time: What are the Ten Plagues endangering the earth and human life today, and what are the Ten Blessings we ourselves can bring to heal the earth and our own societies? If you want to use this text, or part of it, for an Earth Seder in your own community -...more...
The Shalom Center blogged What's this Rosh HaShanah thang?
Dear chevra, When the Talmud takes up Hanukkah, it begins, “Mah zot Hanukkah, What’s this Hanukkah, anyway?” The ancient Rabbis did not like its military overtones. But they took great delight in Rosh Hashanah. It’s more than a “new year”: “Rosh” means “head” or top,” but “shanah” is from a root that means both “change” and “repetition.” ...more...
The Shalom Center blogged Bill McKibben Calls for Civil Disobedience Campaign in Washington DC in August 2011
By Rabbi Arthur Waskow Bill McKibben and several other leaders of the USand world-wide movement to prevent climate disaster have called for a wave of nonviolent civil disobedience at the White House gates between August 20 and Labor Day. The action will focus on convincing President Obama to withhold permits for the so-called ‘Keystone XLPipeline’ from Canada’s tar sands to flow to Texas refineries, thence to add enorm...more...
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