Congregation Rodeph Shalom

It's Pride Month and we are kicking off the celebration at a Shabbat dinner this Friday! Enjoy music from Brotherly Love, an ensemble of the Gay Men's Chorus. $36/adult; $18/children 3-12. Pride shirts will also be available for purchase.

Register at bit.ly/rspridedinner2026.

The Belonging Project is a relationship-building initiative that brings together small groups of congregants who may not yet know one another. Through guided, meaningful conversations, participants share their stories and experiences. The aim is to gradually and intentionally deepen the fabric of our community, one connection at a time. This month, we ask -- Is there a song, prayer, or ritual that you find especially moving? For more information on The Belonging Project, contact Steven Share at [email protected].

Toll the Bell, an initiative of Penn Arts Live, is a city-wide sound installation bringing greater awareness to the gun violence epidemic affecting our city and the nation. Join on Friday, June 5 at 12:45 p.m. at the corner of Broad & Green Sts. where we will have a brief discussion of efforts to reduce gun violence, and then blow shofars in unison at 1:00 p.m. Philadelphians will come together to pause and reflect, but Toll the Bell is not a profile of tragedy; it is a resounding call to action — a literal ringing of the bell — urging us to work towards transformative change for our city.

The Midrash teaches: “See My works, how beautiful and praiseworthy they are! And all that I have created, I created for your sake. Pay heed that you do not damage and destroy My world; for if you do, there is no one to repair it after you.” For Congregation Rodeph Shalom, solar power offers a public and tangible way to avoid wasting renewable natural resources and to protect God's creation.

Our roof is now adorned with solar panels! Rodeph Shalom is committed to long-term sustainability efforts to reduce our carbon footprint. The most recent solar project offered us the opportunity to recognize our highest Carbon offset to date. For comparison, our 84 kW system offsets approximately 68 tons of Carbon per year compared to our LED lighting retrofits which offsets approximately 1.4 tons of Carbon per year. Our solar panel installation allows us to offset approximately 10-12% of our yearly electricity usage. It is also worth noting, our accelerated timeline for implementation allowed us to leverage valuable Federal solar incentives.

This project was made possible in part by the Adamah Climate Action Fund (Adamah ) (adamah.org/coalition).

Democracy: United We Stand, presented in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, brings together diverse perspectives reflecting on the essential role of active citizen participation in sustaining democracy. We invite you to join us for a panel discussion with artists M. Annenberg, Mikel Elam, Jason Lempieri, and Christopher Vazquez, with Dr. Aliza Benjamin, art historian and representatives from the Rodeph Shalom Suffrage Project that extends this dialogue—creating space for connection, exchange, and shared reflection, and the urgent questions facing democracy today. Moderated by Patricia Moss-Vreeland, artist, poet, curator. Register at bit.ly/pmjajunepanel.

We are only one week away from celebrating Pride Month! Please join us for dinner after services on Friday, June 5 to celebrate Pride with Brotherly Love, an ensemble of the Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus. $36/adult; $18/child (3-12). Register at bit.ly/rspridedinner2026.

RS members are invited to join for a special interfaith program inside Eastern State Penitentiary’s historic synagogue on Wednesday, May 27 as part of our Belonging Project, a relationship-building initiative that brings together small groups of congregants who may not yet know one another. The topic is how communities wrestle with justice, accountability, forgiveness, and restoration. Register at bit.ly/esppanel to purchase your ticket for the Eastern State Penitentiary program. Gather at a residence in Fairmount before the program for lite bites. Contact Cara Schneider Bongiorno at [email protected] to let her know if you are attending the pre-program gathering, as well as the program.