New York – Bighearted Jewish Brooklynites pile food on thousands of plates on Friday night, feeding hungry strangers they’ve met on a Facebook-styled site where collecting “invites” is key.
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Shabbat.com is an online global community with 25,000 members swapping requests to join each other’s Sabbath meals — a Jewish tradition honoring a break from the work week over wine, challah bread and at a four-course meal.
The kosher side of the county of Kings is the most popular destination, accounting for more than half of the site’s meal tickets.
“Why not show the world that we are a welcoming people?” asked founder Benzion Klatzko. “I want to highlight the openness that we have.”
But the site isn’t that open.
Once someone asks to join, Klatzko and his growing team of volunteers searches the person on Google and Facebook, weeding out any potential troublemakers.
If all checks out — the user selects whether they are a “host” or a “guest”. Most people click guest, while about 6,000 have chosen to host in cities all over the world.
Most meals are scattered across Flatbush, Midwood and other heavily Brooklyn Jewish neighborhoods.
Guests and hosts scroll through the Facebook-like profiles, picking out who they’d want to share a table with by reading reviews written by former dinner mates.
“It’s made life a lot more interesting,” said Rabbi Yaakov Goldstein, who has fed scores of strangers in the past year in his Kensington home with help from his wife, Feige.
“Our kids started moving out; the house was getting emptier and emptier. Shabbos is supposed to be fun. We started looking around for people,” said Goldstein who has hosted tourists from as far away as France.
Goldstein says he only invites other Jews, but Klatzko said Catholic priests and other religious-friendly folks also are guests on the site.
“Our site is open to every denomination: religious, not religious, single, not single,” Klatzko said.
Users can also click if they are interested in a “Shidduch,” or match make.
Klatzko is building a “3.0” version, hiring as many as 40 volunteer matchmakers to help users pair up. The new Shabbat.Com, debuting around March, will also have résumé uploads, similar to the popular job networking site Linkedin.
Marine Park newlyweds Mordy and Zina Genut met a Sabbath meal and were engaged two months later.
Both twentysomethings were recently divorced; each had two young kids and were looking for supper that night rather than a new spouse.
“This is a great social scene,” said Mordy Genut, 28,. “People give you food. A complete stranger. You don’t see that in the world. Most people say, ‘Get out of my house. Or I will shoot you.’ ”
Without going into details, this whole thing carries its own problems, taking strangers into your home, could be very risky.
There is no such a thing as a free lunch or a free Shabbos meal for that matter. One party or the other sooner or later wants something in return. It is not immediately evident, however.
This site is the biggest kiddush Hashem! With the Israeli press (and American press as well) ripping how Jews look down on each other, spit at each other and even worse, along comes Shabbat.com. This website shows that, at the end of the day, our love and caring for each other will always triumph over individual narrow mindedness. I love that this article was in the Daily News for everyone to read. Yasher Koach Shabbat.com team! Everyone should sign up!!
# 1 get a life & a wife I think u have neither -sooo miserable sooo negative and learn from #2 -yossi soo positive & happy we had guest 2collage boys from Florida -did we want anything in return?? A massive mitzvah & that our kids should do the same
In this time of darkness every glare of light helps How wonderful and nice yiden are!!
מי כעמך ישראל גוי אחד בארץ
This concept invites creeps and sex offenders of society to prey on the innocent.
What a beautiful way to use the internet to create groups to get together, all for the purpose for serving & glorifying HaShem!
This is the case I’ve made for the righteous to be able to feel free to use the intenet for good! I know sometimes it can suck people into bad things too…but it’s a matter of self-control & intention, isn’t it?
Most of the learning I’ve done that helped me to leave Christianity, was from what I learned online! I’d still be worshipping the “son” of G-d! It would have destroyed my soul! My kids’ too!
One of the best ways to reach se!cular Jews, the youth & gentiles…is through the internet!
I cannot stress enough what an asset that the internet has been to me & for the Women’s Group I started almost a year ago! So far, I’ve challenged & “woken up” TWO of my friends! And every soul counts & is a big accomplishment! (:-D
This online Sabbath group sounds like a great idea! I hope too many people don’t knock it. Whoever created the project clearly had good intentions.
G-d bless him\her for trying to bring relgious souls together, to help each other to grow, to learn & to stay committed to the mitzvot HaShem gave to His people!
Keep up the good work, avraham avinu must be smiling, “b’cha chotmin” we end the first bracha of shemonei esrei with magen avraham,say chazal that at the end of exile, the last generation before redemption will be one of chesed just like father abraham taught us…
The well meaning people who want to warn about the dangers of strangers are right, and we say thank you to them…
However by now we know that dangers lurk all over the world as well as on this amazing website, all of us understand that life carries with it dangers and risks, there are no dangers to dead people or risks for that matter…
responsible adults have the option to check review’s on the guest profile, inviting girls where girls would be comfortable and boys where they would be comfortable, we don’t have to teach parents about what’s good for their children, but we can certainly point out that one should keep in mind that guest should not be invited on the expense of your children, your child comes first, their safety as well as their material comfort and spiritual environment. One must know when to invite girls and when one can invite boys…
The main thing is let’s all invite, invite, invite, share your table, your food,your home,your torah knowledge,your big heart, your love, with someone who might be looking out any of the above, and let us turn a dark world into a world of light and home for the divine…good shabbos