Shabbat Meal at European Maccabi Games Sets Guinness Record

Maccabi games Image by Getty Images
A Shabbat meal at the European Maccabi Games has broken a Guinness World Record.
Some 2,322 Jewish men and women gathered Friday night for a meal held by Chabad-Lubavitch at the games in Berlin, Chabad.org reported, making it the largest Shabbat meal ever. Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, the head of Chabad in that German city, presided over the festivities.
The gathering broke the mark of 2,226 set in June 2014 at an event hosted by White City Shabbat, a Tel Aviv organization that hosts and coordinates Shabbat meals. That meal also was co-sponsored by Chabad-Lubavitch.
The record-breaking meal was the project of Alon Meyer, the president of Maccabi in Germany, and Robby Rjber, vice president of Makkabi Deutschland.
“There was much more than meets the eye,” Chabad rabbinical student Shneur Volfman of Oak Park, Michigan, who volunteered at the games as part of the Roving Rabbis program, told Chabad.org about the Berlin event. “Even giving out kippahs. It may seem simple, but when you realize how many people there were, you see it’s a big deal.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
- 2
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 3
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 4
Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward These Jewish arts organizations have been defunded by the Trump administration
-
Fast Forward Dave Portnoy revokes Auschwitz trip for student who said ‘F– the Jews’
-
Fast Forward Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian writer targeted by far-right pro-Israel activists, wins Pulitzer for commentary
-
Fast Forward A Jewish nonprofit may have accidentally caused Michigan to drop charges against pro-Palestinian activists
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.