Congregation Mishkan Israel’s annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Service will be on Friday evening, January 12 at 7:30 p.m.
The guest speaker is Michael Wishnie, William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law and Counselor to the Dean at Yale Law School. Professor Wishnie’s teaching, scholarship, and law practice have focused on immigration, labor and employment, habeas corpus, civil rights, government transparency, and veterans law.
For years, Professor Wishnie and his students have represented low-wage workers, immigrants, and veterans in federal, state, and administrative litigation. He and his students have also represented unions, churches, veterans’ groups, and grassroots organizations in a range of legislative, media, and community education matters.
From 1998-2006, Professor Wishnie taught at New York University School of Law. Previously, he worked at the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project as a Skadden Fellow; in the Brooklyn Neighborhood Office of The Legal Aid Society; as a law clerk to Judge H. Lee Sarokin of the District Court of New Jersey and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; and as a clerk for Justice Harry A. Blackmun, retired, working in the chambers of Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States. Before earning his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1993, Professor Wishnie spent two years teaching in the People’s Republic of China.
Beginning in the 1970’s, the Congregation began to pay tribute for Dr. King’s life in order to celebrate his legacy and his ties to the congregation. CMI Rabbi Robert Goldburg had invited his friend, Dr. King to speak at CMI on October 21, 1960 to help dedicate our new synagogue. Dr. King was arrested 2 days before he was to speak but was able to be our guest preacher one year later on October 20, 1961. This was an historic moment that the Congregation wanted to preserve following Dr. King’s assassination and thus the annual service was begun.
For the seventh year, the service will be interfaith. Faith leaders from the Jewish, Catholic Christian, Muslim, Bahai and Unitarian Universalist traditions will join Rabbi Brockman in leading services.
The event is free and open to the community.

Congregation Mishkan Israel is a reform synagogue located at 785 Ridge Road in Hamden. For more information, call the synagogue office at (203) 288-3877