Jerusalem – Tel Aviv Sets Guinness Record For Largest Shabbat Dinner

    8

    Jerusalem – Girls in miniskirts and high heels; rabbis in black hats and white Shirts; the revelry of the Gay Pride parade in the background – this is Friday night in Tel Aviv and a Shabbat for the record books.

    Join our WhatsApp group

    Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email


    Exactly 2,226 people gathered at Hangar 11 at the Tel Aviv Port to participate in the record making largest Shabbat meal ever, organized by White City Shabbat, the Tel Aviv-based NGO that organizes public shabbat meals once a month at the Goren Synagogue on Modigliani Street, as well as other events geared toward the English-speaking and olim community that include holiday learning classes, chalah baking classes, and religious lectures. Sponsors of the Guinness event include the Tel Aviv Municipality.

    White City Shabbat is as popular for its monthly Shabbats as Tel Aviv is notorious for secularism. “One of the reasons we started White City Shabbat is because Shabbat doesn’t need to be in the domain of the religious,” co-founder Deborah Danan said at the start of the event. “For those that don’t have family here, White City has become an alternate family.”

    Hebrew, English, Russian, French, Spanish, these are just a sampling of some of the languages you’ll hear at a White City event. Going strong for the last three years, events attract young, professional immigrants who are trying to find a place to meet like-minded people.

    “We have people coming straight from the pride parade, old, young, singles, families – it’s a cross section of Jews in Israel and all over the world,” Danan said.

    For the Guinness world record event, it took three months of preparation, 60 days of crowdsource fundraising and the culmination is 600 bottles of wine from sponsor Golan Heights Winery, 74 bottles of vodka, 1,800 pieces of chicken, 1,000 pieces of meat, 250 vegetarian options, and 2,000 people signed up, with hundreds more having signed up for a waitlist. Notable attendees are Alan Dershowitz, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, Tel Aviv Chief Rabbi Meir Lau, and former ambassador to the US Michael Oren.

    Basketball Legend Tal Brody, who is a friend and regular attendee of TLV international events as well as one of the organizers, said he’s happy to support such an initiative. “I think they are doing a great job for olim hadashim and the Israeli community… All the sects of the Jewish religion can get together under one roof and have a kabalat Shabbat. I think it’s going to be beautiful.”

    Attendants praise the Shabbat meals for its raucous and fun atmosphere and tonight’s event should be no exception. “This is going to be like a normal white city event, except times a million.” An hour before Shabbat comes in in Tel Aviv a concert is in full swing, men are wrapping tefilin at the entrance and the masses are arriving.

    Organizers have said they never saw a problem with meeting the Guinness standards of having over 1,000 people attend the event. At 1,900 attendees, the meal was sold out two weeks early. An oneg shabbat will take place for anyone wishing to join in the simple revelry.

    Flying in from London, a Guinness World Record adjudicator will be monitoring the meal to ensure it adheres to a strict set of criteria within Orthodox Jewish law and then meets standards set by Guinness to be a world record. All attendees will sit for an official headcount and the event will be timed beginning after hamotzi (leaving ample time for a long and raucus kiddush). After the blessing of the bread, food will need to be served within five minutes and the meal will need to last an hour.

    Praven Patel, the Guinness adjudicator, in his first visit to Israel and his first Shabbat meal will make sure the meal adheres to all Guinness guidelines. Working with a team of volunteers, after everyone is sat, the blessing is given and the meal is served, the headcount must reach over 1,000 to be a record. “It looks very well organized and I look forward to see how the record is set.”

    Patel, from London, has worked for Guinness for the past two years and has judged a variety of events, from items of unusual size to the largest first aid course demonstration. Patel said that this event is unusual and exciting and is looking forward to seeing the number of people that attend. “It’s new to me.”


    Listen to the VINnews podcast on:

    iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Podbean | Amazon

    Follow VINnews for Breaking News Updates


    Connect with VINnews

    Join our WhatsApp group


    8 Comments
    Most Voted
    Newest Oldest
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments
    aczermak
    aczermak
    9 years ago

    this is ridiculous any large tish has 5x that amount

    neezoogshoin
    neezoogshoin
    9 years ago

    They’ve obviously never been to a tish in gur or belz

    LionofZion
    LionofZion
    9 years ago

    Amazing! Go Chabad!

    BLONDI
    BLONDI
    9 years ago

    Well then call up the Guinness record people and up it…make it official

    NotFairInSquare
    NotFairInSquare
    9 years ago

    In uman, this past year (and this coming year), there were 10,000 people eating Friday dinner together. I doubt the organizers will be calling Guinness to supervise. In fact, I suspect there are many world records broken during the uman high holiday experience. Likely the largest kosher kitchen in the world, largest tashlich in the world, most chulent served in the world, most corrupt country in the world, and the list can go on and on. Possibly even the longest list of potential world records in the world.