Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Shabbat Project Reaches More Than 1 Million In 97 Countries

(JTA) — More than one million people in 97 countries around the world participated in the 5th annual Shabbat Project.

Some 1,416 cities around the world, up from 1,152 cities last year, held activities surrounding the 25 hours of Shabbat on Oct. 27 and Oct. 28. Some 586 of the participating cities were located in the United States. Another more than 300 cities and small communities throughout Israel participated in the Shabbat Project. Meanwhile, countries such as Mozambique, Cyprus, Paraguay and Venezuela hosted Shabbat Project events for the first time

“The response from around the world has been overwhelming and heart-warming, and shows the remarkable depth and reach of The Shabbat Project,” said South African Chief Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein, the founder and director of The Shabbat Project, in a statement.

Events included: 1,000 Israelis eating dinner in a shipping hanger in Tel Aviv; a tour group of 30 people from around the world deciding to keep a full Shabbat together in Marrakesh, Morocco; 3,000 at an open-air musical Kabbalat Shabbat overlooking Australia’s Sydney Harbour Bridge; an interfaith unity bake bringing together Muslim and Jewish children at a local preschool in nearby Woolahra, a Sydney suburb; and the lone Jew serving in an army regiment in Abuja, Nigeria who kept Shabbat with the rest of the Jewish world.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

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 the protests on college campuses.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

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 credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link 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.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.