Tel Aviv Breaks Guinness Record for Largest Shabbat Dinner

Tel Aviv’s Guinness World Record-breaking Shabbat dinner Image by Courtesy of White City Shabbat

By JTA June 15, 2014

More than 2,000 people set the Guinness World Record for “largest Shabbat dinner” in Tel Aviv.

At an event Friday evening hosted by Chabad-Lubavitch and White City Shabbat, a Tel Aviv organization that hosts and coordinates Shabbat meals, 2,226 people gathered for what was billed as the largest Shabbat dinner ever. An official representative of Guinness World Records present at the event certified that the dinner had set the record.

The dinner took place in a large atrium at the Tel Aviv Port, and organizers purchased 800 bottles of wine, 80 bottles of vodka, 50 bottles of whiskey, 2,000 challah rolls, 1,800 pieces of chicken, 1,000 pieces of beef and 250 vegetarian meals for the dinner. Attendees also ate rice, peas, a range of Israel appetizers and cake.

Chabad representatives led Orthodox Shabbat services before the dinner, which was dedicated to the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the former rebbe of Lubavitch who died in 1994.

Present at the event were dignitaries including Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren and former Israeli Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau.

“The jubilation in the room when Guinness World Records announced the official results was palpable,” White City Shabbat Co-director Deborah Danan said in a statement. “We are witnessing the transition of Tel Aviv as being the new capital for Jews – not just for those with professional impetuses but also for those who want to see the revival in Jewish life continue.”

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