Symmetric strongly shifted ideals are a class of monomial ideals which come equipped with an action of the symmetric group and are analogous to the well-studied class of strongly stable monomial ideals. In this paper we focus on algebraic and combinatorial properties of symmetric strongly shifted ideals. On the algebraic side, we elucidate properties that pertain to behavior under ideal operations, primary decomposition, and the structure of their Rees algebra. On the combinatorial side, we develop a notion of partition Borel generators which leads to connections to discrete polymatroids, convex polytopes, and permutohedral toric varieties.