JNS
"Shabbat is who we are," Warren Goldstein, the chief rabbi of South Africa who founded the project, told JNS.
More than 1 million people from more than 1,500 cities in more than 100 countries are expected to celebrate the Sabbath in some fashion this weekend as part of the 12th annual Shabbat Project, which describes itself as “a global grassroots movement uniting Jews of all backgrounds and levels of observance to experience one full Shabbat together in unity.”
“Looking back on this past year, it began with us being pounded like the sand on the shore. Tremendous pain and suffering persists. The hostages are still captive, brave IDF troops continue to fight and many families mourn fallen soldiers and those who were murdered,” Warren Goldstein, the chief rabbi of South Africa who founded the project in 2013, told JNS.
“Meanwhile, it has been a year of resurging antisemitism led by the anti-Israel movement in the Diaspora. Yet we have also shone like stars this year," he said. "We have seen, through God's blessings and promises, how the state of Israel has fought back, achieving great victories: the complete defeat of Hamas in Gaza, the crippling of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the exposure of Iran's weaknesses and vulnerabilities."
"Looking back, we can acknowledge how much has been achieved, knowing that Israel and the Jewish people are stronger and safer today than we were a year ago on Oct. 6, when we were unaware of all the terrible dangers we faced,” Goldstein added.
JNS asked Goldstein about the significance of the project celebrating its bat mitzvah this year.
“The place of The Shabbat Project in the hearts of Jews all over the world comes from the instinctive spiritual sense that Shabbat is who we are, and our eternal soulmate always, source of strength and faith and divine in times of ease and times of searing challenge,” he said.
Netanel Friedman, a rabbi who is part of the nonprofit Atlanta Scholars Kollel, told JNS that his community opted to do something more personal as part of the project this year, instead of having a large gathering, in which people are “spoken to.”
“What we created as our program this year was, instead of trying to bring everyone together for a big group, was to have people host small groups at their homes and appreciate their own personal Shabbos,” he said.
On Shabbat morning, there will be a panel discussion, during which speakers will share how they experience their own Shabbats, from what it means to them to what they do to prepare. “We’re trying to get people to understand their own experience, their neighbor’s and their friend’s experience,” Friedman said.
After Shabbat, there will be a “local talent musical celebration, melava malka, where, again, it’s people from the neighborhood playing, singing and enjoying the celebration and the meaningfulness of Shabbos together,” he said.
Zev Pomeranz, a rabbi and director of Etz Chaim Baltimore told JNS that the group, which provides “informal adult Jewish education,” has participated in the Shabbat Project “for many years,” but is seeing a nearly 20% jump in participation this year.
Some 250 women are registered to take part in a communal challah bake on Thursday night, which his wife is leading and which is dedicated to the mothers of lone soldiers, Pomeranz said. A lone soldier from the community is also participating.
“Since Oct. 7 and the ensuing rise of antisemitism throughout the year, people are definitely feeling different,” the rabbi told JNS. “Especially people who may not be actively exercising their Judaism, their Jewishness, are definitely looking for ways to connect to their Judaism and discover what it really means to be a Jew.”
“Jews connecting to each other and uniting—all different types of Jews—is certainly the most powerful spiritual weapon that we have to protect ourselves as the Jewish people and maintain our safety and continuity,” Pomeranz added.
Three new cities are participating this year—Casablanca (Morocco), Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa) and Tahiti (French Polynesia)—organizers said, and more than 800,000 Israelis are expected to take part in the Shabbat Project this year from 250 cities and towns.
One of those Israelis is Sapir Cohen, who spent 55 days in Hamas captivity. On Nov. 13, Palestinian Islamic Jihad released a proof-of-life video of Alex (“Sasha”) Troufanov, Cohen’s boyfriend, who remains a hostage.
Troufanov’s mother Yelena Troufanov and grandmother Irena Tati were also taken hostage and were released on Nov. 29, 2023, at the request of Russian President Vladimir Putin. (The family is of Russian descent.) Cohen was released as part of a ceasefire deal that month.
“When I heard the terrorists here breaking down the door, I said, ‘God I will keep Shabbat. God, I will Keep Shabbat,’” Cohen said in a video made for the Shabbat Project prior to the release of the video of Troufanov. “I have always believed there is a God. So I decided and I said to myself that if you are in Gaza, it’s because God sent you here. I felt that it gave me energy to go into another new week.”
“Dedicate Shabbat to the hostages who are still in Gaza,” she said, “and to all the soldiers or somebody who is important to them. I want everybody to feel connected to what is happening in Israel. Although they are far away, they should know that they can do something and help.”
