For six years, Gady Levy, executive director of the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center in Manhattan, has had a dream: to host the world’s largest Shabbat dinner.
The previous record, documented by the Guinness Book of World Records, was set in Berlin in 2015, when 2,322 people gathered for a Shabbat meal during the European Maccabi Games.
Now, this fall, Levy aims to top that with The Big Shabbat, a massive Shabbat dinner to be held on Friday, Nov. 21 at Javits North, the newest addition to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center at 445 11th Avenue. More than 3,000 people are expected to attend the event, which Temple Emanu-El is organizing in partnership with UJA-Federation of New York. It will include a meal “curated” by celebrated Jewish foodies Adeena Sussman, Jake Cohen, Joan Nathan and Beejhy Barhany.
“We are the biggest Jewish city outside of Israel,” Levy told the New York Jewish Week. “Time for us to stand up for who we are.”
Levy is no stranger to large, attention-grabbing events. Over the past year, the Streicker Center has hosted a wide variety of speakers at the Upper East Side synagogue’s 2,500-seat main sanctuary, including business leader Bill Gates, singer and actress Cher, and Bret Stephens, an opinion columnist for The New York Times.
So when Levy learned that UJA-Federation of New York was looking to underwrite large-scale events that emphasize Jewish joy, he dusted off the proposal he has kept in his desk these many years for a gargantuan Shabbat dinner. To his delight, Streicker received a grant of $500,000 from the philanthropy to bring his vision to life.
Levy is hoping to recreate the feeling of joy and warmth that he experienced during Shabbat at sleepaway camp. As both a camper and a counselor at Camp Ramah in California, Levy recalls Shabbat being his “favorite part of camp.”
“The experience will start as soon as people get here,” he said of the Javits Center affair. “There will be people welcoming them. Lively music. Food passed around. Drink stations. Activities for kids and for adults.”
“At it’s core, it’s Shabbat,” Levy said. “By the time people leave, I want them to say three things to themselves: I’m proud to be part of the Jewish community of New York; who knew Shabbat dinner could be so much fun; and, no matter what our differences, we still want community and we are doing things that Jews did thousands of years before us.”
There will also be plenty of surprises. “Once Shabbat dinner begins, there is a big opening moment which I am not telling anyone, including you!” he told this reporter.
However, Levy did share his plans to build a reproduction of the Kotel, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, where people can write notes and stuff them into the wall, as is customarily done in Jerusalem. At the end of the evening, one of the guests in attendance will be randomly picked to win a trip to Israel — the winner will then take the notes and place it in the actual Kotel on behalf of the 3,000 people in attendance.
Clergy from New York City — including those from partnering synagogues, which include Temple Israel, Temple Shaaray Tefila and SAJ-Judaism That Stands for All — will recite the traditional Shabbat blessings. There will be “a bunch of celebrities,” Levy promises, and lots of “wow” moments, but he’s keeping mum about them for now.
The actual dinner portion of the Shabbat gathering will last an hour. “That’s the Guinness rules so from the minute we say motzi [the blessing over the bread], people need to be seated for one hour,” Levy said.
Participants will pay $54 per person for the family-style dinner, prepared by In Thyme Catering together with Yalla Teaneck, certified kosher by the Rabbinical Council of Bergen County, New Jersey. There will be a selection of salads, vegetarian stuffed peppers from Nathan and Sussman’s tomato jam-roasted salmon from her acclaimed cookbook, “Shabbat.,”
In Thyme Catering will prepare 300 challahs, more than 1,500 pounds of salmon and more than 15,000 hors d’oeuvres, according to founding partner Arthur Bassani.
Sussman, who lives in Tel Aviv, will fly to New York for the event. She feels a communal Shabbat dinner is especially important in our post-Oct. 7 era.
“With every passing week, it is more and more important that Jewish people feel they have common spaces to come together over the aspects of our culture that unify us,” Sussman said. “Shabbat dinner for the initiated is a huge source of comfort and succor and joy.”
She added: “For the uninitiated, I would imagine it is needed more than ever. The fact that it is going to provide an entry point for a lot of people for the first time is also amazing in these times. Ever since the idea was announced, it seems more relevant and more important than ever.”
The “humongous room,” according to Levy, will hold 100 tables of 30 seats each, plus three stages and large video screens, ensuring that there are no “good” or “bad” seats.
And yet, “We want to create an intimate experience,” Levy said. “White tablecloths. China plates. Candles. Washing stations at each table. And lots and lots of food on the table.”
Once the dinner is over, the reception room will be reopened for live music, dancing and dessert tables. Hopefully, said Levy, everyone will be celebrating Shabbat — as well as celebrating that “we did it,” he said, meaning earning a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
But beyond the fun of it, Levy is hoping that participants will be so moved by the experience that they will want to do Shabbat at home, too.
“One of the surprises is that when people leave, they get a Shabbat box,” he said. “One box will have a challah cover. Another will have candlesticks. Some will include questions to engender conversation around the Shabbat table.”
The Big Shabbat will take place on Friday, Nov. 21. Tickets will go on sale on Monday, Aug. 11. Click here for details.
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