On Nov. 19 at night, antisemitic protesters blocked worshippers from entering Park East Synagogue, a Modern Orthodox congregation on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and called for violence against Jews. Two days later, a Reform temple some four blocks away hosted a Friday night dinner, which drew so many people that it set a new Guinness World Record.
“We had to be seated for a full hour for the dinner to be counted,” Rabbi Joshua Davidson, senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, told JNS. “After that came the announcement that we had broken the record, along with the number by which we surpassed it.”
That number was 2,761—439 more people than the prior record of 2,322 at a Shabbat gathering in Berlin on July 31, 2015 during the European Maccabi Games.
Davidson told JNS that Emanu-El, which is celebrating its 180th anniversary, has talked about hosting a “big Shabbat” event for “a number of years.”
“We thought that doing this in that context—inviting people from around the New York City community to be part of the celebration—would be a very meaningful way of marking the milestone,” he said.
Planned as a joyful event, the Shabbat meal took on new significance in the political climate and following recent events in New York City.
“What we didn’t anticipate was the environment and the historic moment in which the event would take place, particularly given the tensions in New York City around the increase in antisemitic violence and the divisions sparked during the mayoral race,” he told JNS.
Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of the Big Apple, has said that he would have the Israeli prime minister arrested, and his press secretary said after the protest outside Park East Synagogue that the Nefesh B’Nefesh event, which addressed Jews moving to Israel, amounted to a “violation of international law.”
“We certainly didn’t anticipate that two days before the event, there would be a very disturbing antisemitic protest at one of New York’s own synagogues,” Davidson told JNS of the Shabbat gathering.
The record-breaking event, which drew temple members, New Yorkers from different Jewish denominations, international visitors and non-Jews who came with their Jewish friends, “turned out to be more poignant and more powerful than any of us could have imagined,” the rabbi said.
“It wasn’t just a celebratory dinner,” he told JNS. “It became an important demonstration of Jewish pride.”
After live Jewish and Israeli music performances, guests at the event wrote notes to place in a model of the Western Wall which are to be brought to Israel. After a reception, guests viewed a video introducing the Shabbat blessings, according to the rabbi.
The freed hostage Omri Miran and his wife Lishay lit candles, and prominent Jewish chefs recited other blessings prior to the meal. Two stars from “Fiddler on the Roof” on Broadway sang Shabbat songs during the meal, as did an a capella group, Davidson said.
“The power of the event was the statement it made at this particular moment in Jewish history,” he said. “It all made the evening an especially poignant statement of Jewish solidarity.”
Frank Greenberg, 68, a Temple Emanu-El member, attended the “spectacular” with his family members and 30 friends that they invited.
“It was incredibly well organized. The security was perfect,” he told JNS. “Everybody was concerned about security. The flow of the evening was better than we expected. It was just a very special event.”
“No other event I’ve been to comes close to this,” he said.
Everyone was very excited when there was an announcement that a Guinness record had been set, he said.
“Living in New York City, we are kind of used to people acting in disgusting fashion so nothing surprises us,” he said of the recent antisemitic protest. “Honestly, we didn’t even think about what had just happened at Park East. As tragic as that event was, each event has to stand on its own.”
A City Hall spokesman praised the event and the message it projected at a tense time for New York Jews.
“New York City is home to a vibrant, eclectic and diverse Jewish community—the largest one outside of Israel,” the spokesman for the mayor, who visited Israel last week, told JNS.
Mayor Eric Adams “has always welcomed and celebrated this community, particularly amidst a rising antisemitism in our city, our nation and the globe,” City Hall said. “Under the mayor’s leadership, antisemitic hate crimes are down 12% year-to-date, but this work is not finished, and events like these help encourage a sense of unity and community for our entire city.”
Rabbi Aharon Slonim, who runs the Chabad at Binghamton University, told JNS that “if every Jewish community continues to break records in this vein, the world will be that much more of a brighter place.”
The Binghamton Chabad began hosting “Shabbat 1,000” dinners in 1994, and one such event drew more than 2,000 people, according to Slonim. The event brings Jews together in a “meaningful way” and builds on the vision of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, he said.