I attended a world-record breaking Shabbat dinner. You won’t believe how much we ate.

A violinist suspended from the ceiling plays songs from “Fiddler on the Roof” at “The Big Shabbat.” Courtesy of The Big Shabbat

By Hannah Feuer November 24, 2025

As my mother likes to remind me whenever I host, it’s better to err on the side of too much food than too little.

But 811 pounds of potatoes for kugel, 402 challahs, and 22,500 hors d’oeuvres? Even she might have called that a meshuggeneh idea.

Thankfully, this wasn’t Shabbat with my parents; this was at the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan where nearly 3,000 hungry Jews filed in, ready to eat their fill.

If the sheer volume of challah didn’t give it away, this was no ordinary homecooked meal — it was a bid to break the world record for the largest Shabbat ever held. The record had been held by Berlin, Germany, which hosted 2,322 participants at a Shabbat dinner in 2015.

Temple Emanu-El’s Streicker Center organized the event, supported by a $500,000 grant from UJA-Federation of New York. Tickets cost $54 apiece, and the waitlist had to be capped at 1,200.

Upon entering the high-security venue, guests were greeted by food carts distributing Jerusalem bagels — oval-shaped, sesame-dusted delights. One man, already sizing up the abundant spread, tried to pawn an uneaten portion of his bagel off on me. “I can’t eat it all!” he said.

Attendees tucked notes into a miniature replica of the Western Wall; the notes would later be sent to the real thing in Jerusalem. Hors d’oeuvres consisted of mini potato knishes, baked phyllo feta sticks, and lox atop cucumber slices (presumably nova, but this reporter could not verify). Guests sipped ga’zoz, a popular Israeli soda.

When it was time to be seated, each guest was assigned a table number within a color-coded section. We were told there was only one rule that the Guinness adjudicator, a Brooklyn Jew named Andrew Glass, would be verifying: Attendees must remain seated for an hour.

No bathroom breaks? No time to stretch? This would be harder than I thought.

Luckily, the hosts provided ample entertainment to keep our tucheses firmly planted. The program began with an AI-generated video of Abraham the Hebrew patriarch, Albert Einstein, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Golda Meir, up in heaven, offering commentary about the Big Shabbat.

“Golda, did you make enough food?” AI-generated-Ginsburg asked.

Next came the live celebrity appearances: Actor Jonah Platt sang “Shalom Aleichem,” the poem commonly sung at the beginning of a Shabbat meal, and Broadway stars Steven Skybell and Shoshana Bean performed “Sabbath Prayer” from Fiddler on the Roof.

Former Hamas-held hostage Omri Miran and his wife, Lishay, led the candle lighting. Bestselling cookbook authors Adeena Sussman, Jake Cohen, and Joan Nathan led the kiddush and Hamotzi.

After the prayers, we sampled Israeli pickles and olives, hummus, za’atar-spiced pita, mini potato kugels, and Keye Sir, an Ethiopian beet salad by Chef Beejhy Barhany. For those who still had room, the main course followed, featuring chopped salad, tomato-jam roasted salmon, and vegan lasagna.

Then came the night’s pièce de résistance: A woman in a sparkling leotard, suspended by wires from the ceiling, performed a soaring, midair rendition of “If I Were a Rich Man” on the violin.

As the hour drew to a close, Glass noted that an on-site food safety specialist had confirmed all dishes were safe to eat, and a rabbi had verified that everything was kosher. Most importantly, we had been instructed to remain seated the entire time for counting purposes.

“Unfortunately, there were a few deductions from the count,” he said, drawing boos from the crowd.

Had all this fressen been for nought?

“You achieved 2,761,” he said. “Congratulations!”

The Jewish a cappella group Six13 erupted into singing “We Are the Champions.” We were officially world record holders.

Now, it was time for dessert.