Shabbat dinners for young adults were the new thing. Now OneTable is laying off staff.

OneTable announced layoffs Tuesday in a company-wide Zoom call. Photo by iStock/monkeybusinessimages

By Louis Keene December 2, 2025

When OneTable, a nonprofit that helps organize and fund Shabbat dinners for thousands of young adults each year, introduced its new chief executive in May, things seemed to be on the upswing. Amid a national rise in Jewish engagement, OneTable board chair Julie Franklin said the organization’s community was “thriving and bigger than ever before.”

Internally, though, the organization was facing a decline in funding, and on Tuesday it laid off 14 employees — about a quarter of its staff.

CEO Sarah Abramson informed staff of the impending layoffs in a companywide Zoom call Tuesday afternoon, according to a OneTable employee who was later informed that they were among those whose jobs were cut. The Forward granted the employee anonymity to discuss the situation.

The organization confirmed the layoffs in a statement.

“Our organization is undertaking a planned, strategic shift in staffing to ensure we effectively continue to empower young adults to craft their own personalized Shabbat practices filled with meaning, reflection, and community,” the statement said.

The cuts — which did not appear to include any executives, the employee said — come as OneTable, whose budget still exceeds $10 million, makes broader changes to its approach.

Oct. 7 changed Shabbat dinners

The organization typically gives hosts, who must be Jewish and are generally aged 21-39, a stipend of $10 per registered guest at their dinners. Guests looking for a Shabbat dinner can sign up to be matched with a host on the OneTable platform.

After Oct. 7, the employee said, the organization saw a new pattern emerge: Unique guests were down, with some hosts inviting the same few guests over and over. In recent months, OneTable began “graduating” — that is, discharging — some of those hosts in an effort to reduce costs and focus on the mission of bringing Shabbat to more people, the employee said.

In the statement about the layoffs, the company said that their participants have doubled to 80,000 annually since Oct. 7, and that the layoffs will allow them to “explore new engagement approaches including pilots launching in 2026.”

The organization also partners with local organizations to receive funding and to collaborate on larger dinner events. But several OneTable field managers were laid off, perhaps signaling a change to that model.

The future of a newer program for older adults, known as “50ish+,” is unclear.

An audited financial report from 2024, made public by OneTable on its website, reported just under $11 million in assets — down from just under $12 million the year prior, with net contributions and grants receivable also down from roughly $8.5 million to $7.4 million.

The previous CEO, Aliza Kline, co-founded the organization and served 10 years in the role before stepping down in 2024.