On a Thursday night in downtown Manhattan, eight people sat around a table, in an intimate, closed-off room. There, a sushi chef delicately prepared a meal that included 11 nigiri, sashimi and a hand roll.
It was an omakase meal, a trendy — and often expensive — Japanese dining experience that has exploded in popularity over the last decade in New York City. It’s an indecisive customer’s dream: The chef picks the entire menu as well as the order in which customers eat it, one piece at a time.
There was an air of luxury to the meal — diners were instructed on how to eat each piece to maximize flavor; the chef used a blowtorch to lightly char the madai, or sea bream — as guests chatted with one another between courses as servers poured us sake.
It felt like a taste of the culinary high life, except for one small detail: The omakase meal wasn’t taking place in one of the dozens of upscale sushi bars and omakase spots across the city. Instead, it took place in the back room of a Chabad house in Manhattan.
The dinner was the opening night of Fins and Scales, a new initiative that brings kosher omakase meals to select Chabad houses across the country, starting with The Chabad Loft at the Kavanah Space in Greenwich Village. Designed to be “the perfect bridge between the ultimate foodie experience and Jewish life,” according to its website, Fins and Scales operates on a pay-what-you-wish model and is a project of Chabad Friends, an organization whose aim is to bring more people to Chabad.
“We want to increase the flow of traffic,” said Michael Sinensky, co-founder of Chabad Friends. Referring to the marketing term for generating consumer interest and turning that interest into a sale, “We’re like a lead-gen tool for Chabad.”
In this case, however, a “sale” means attracting the participation of less observant Jews who may feel “intimidated” by the religiousness of Chabad, according to Sinensky’s co-founder, Elizabeth Pipko.
With omakase, Pipko said, the idea is that “someone might come in [for sushi] on a Wednesday, meet the rabbi, meet people and feel so comfortable they come back on Friday for Shabbat for the first time.”
Of course, offering secular activities within a traditional Jewish space isn’t a brand-new idea. According to Marc Lee Raphael, author of “The Synagogue in America,” so-called “synagogue-centers” — Jewish spaces that offer both prayer and secular activities like swimming pools and basketball courts — are a uniquely American trend that peaked in the interwar period, first started by the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan.
The idea, according to Raphael, is that “people who play together will pray together,” he said, noting that, in some ways, upscale omakase meals are simply a 21st-century version of the trend.
“It seems like Chabad [Friends] — they probably aren’t influenced by Mordecai Kaplan specifically — but by the idea that if you come to the restaurant, you might also pop into the sanctuary,” Raphael said.
Chabad is known for its ability to engage unaffiliated Jews. The movement has built a global brand over the decades, making initiatives such as Mitzvah Tanks and massive public menorah lightings during Hanukkah synonymous with the brand.
Chabad houses, too, are an integral part of the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement. A sort of combination of a Jewish community center and a synagogue, Chabad houses are run by a rabbi husband and his wife, and they offer programming that includes classes, prayer services and Shabbat and other holiday meals. (The “house” in Chabad house is also literal — typically the couple and their children live in the space, too.)
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Rebbe, who was the Chabad-Lubavitch movement’s leader from 1951 until his death in 1994, called for “the establishment of new Chabad houses wherever Jews live,” according to Chabad.org. New ones are established every year, in increasingly far-flung locales: In 1994, there were 1,325 Chabad houses; today, there are some 5,000.
The idea to serve sushi at Chabad houses was born out of experience: Sinensky is also the founder of SimpleVenue, a hospitality group that owns the local omakase chain Sushi By Bou. While he’s overseen kosher omakase pop-ups in the past, Fins and Scales is the first time that his business will operate fully kosher omakase locations. In addition to the Greenwich Village pilot, they’re planning to expand to other Chabad houses in the city, as well as Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington D.C.
Though Fins and Scales officially operates on a “give what you can” basis, there’s a suggested donation of $150. Proceeds go toward Chabad Friends, which is a subsidiary of Worldwide Friends Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to provide “humanitarian and tactical aid where it’s needed, when it’s needed,” according to its website.
“Someone’s going to give us $1,000 because they were so inspired by it, and someone’s gonna give us $18,” Pipko said. “In the end, it’s all going to even out.”
She added, “It’s such a rough time for people in general, and I don’t want someone to not be able to experience it.”
In addition to Fins and Scales, Chabad Friends is launching a series of initiatives that includes a matchmaking service and online Torah classes. They’ve also gotten big names including comedian Michael Rapaport and musician Matisyahu, who formally left the Chabad movement in 2007, to sign on as co-founders.
Pipko previously worked as a national spokesperson for the Republican Party and first met Sinensky when she was organizing Donald Trump’s visit to the Ohel — Schneerson’s gravesite — on the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. But she said after the meal on Thursday that Chabad Friends has “no political tie whatsoever.”
“I have worked in politics for a very long time, I’m proud of the work I’ve done, but my Judaism will always come first and will always be separate,” Pipko said. “I hope to God that everyone that comes here does not think about politics at all, and leaves that at the door.”
(The same night of the Fins and Scales launch, politics were front and center outside Chabad’s global headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn: The far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was visiting, and pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with Jewish counter-protesters on the streets outside 770 Eastern Parkway.)
At the first of four seatings on Thursday evening, after the 13th and final item of the meal — a fatty tuna hand roll with sesame and scallion — Chabad Loft’s Rabbi Yakov Bankhalter poked his head in to say hello and meet everyone around the table, who represented a mix of Jewish influencers, event organizers and New York Jewish Week staffers.
Among the guests was Linnea Sage, who hosts the Jewish Dating Game — a live, interactive matchmaking show that we covered back in December — and her husband, Paul Skye Lehrman. She’d been offered the seats after Sushi By Bou sponsored a dinner for a winning couple on her show.
Sage said her favorite item was the fatty tuna. “It’s always my favorite,” she said. “And it did not disappoint.”
(My personal highlight of the evening was when one diner asked the chef, Alex, for the name of a particular fish. He responded: “Jason.”)
Sage said she loved the “intimate” vibe and chatting — and, of course, playing Jewish geography — with the other guests.
Ultimately, Pipko said, “We’re bringing Jews together through the one thing we have, which is faith — which I don’t know if enough people are pushing nowadays.”
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