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Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
S habbat doesn’t always look like a quiet dinner with candle
lighting and prayers over wine and bread. Sometimes, it looks
like a Free Britney dance party to raise awareness of pop star
Britney Spears’ conservatorship; other times, it looks like mural
painting in West Philadelphia.

These unconventional evenings aren’t just pipe dreams of young
Jews; they’re events that have materialized as a way for a generation
who have shied away from becoming synagogue members to live
Jewishly. They’re also ideas that OneTable Philadelphia Field Manager
Emma Chasen has helped support through the organization, which
provides funding to young Jews looking to foster community
through Shabbat dinners.

Chasen, 30, has even hosted an esoteric Shabbat in her Manayunk
home through OneTable, gathering Mason jars and essential oils and
10 DECEMBER 1, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
encouraging guests to create fragrant
potions to bring home with them.

“You can explore your Judaism; you
can contemplate on different kinds of
philosophical — or even more mun-
dane — questions that are coming up
in your life over community over a
dinner table,” Chasen said. “You can
incorporate rituals that have been used
historically, and/or you can make up
your own ones that feel really mean-
ingful to you.”
In December, Chasen will leave
OneTable in pursuit of her graduate
studies at Jefferson University, where
she is receiving her master’s degree in
medical cannabis science and business.

But having moved to Philly with her
fiancee only a year ago, she said she
wouldn’t have been able to find her
bearings in the new city so easily with-
out OneTable.

“That expansiveness allowed me to
be able to show up in a way that still felt
really authentic to me, and it was such a
beautiful feeling of belonging that I had
not felt at any kind of institutionalized
Jewish space,” she said.

Chasen grew up in a secular Jewish
household in Long Island, New York,
where she celebrated the major Jewish
holidays, but did not receive a formal
Jewish education or become bat mitz-
vah in a synagogue.

“I always felt like I was kind of
being an imposter,” Chasen said of her
Judaism. Her relationship with Judaism began
to change when she read a book about
divine feminine mystique traditions,
which contained a chapter about
Shabbat. She absorbed the book while
on an eight-day cruise without internet
or cellphone service, a prolonged “tech
Shabbat,” she called it.

After the cruise, Chasen approached
another secular Jewish friend about
starting a Shabbat practice. Her
friend pointed her in the direction of
OneTable. When Chasen joined OneTable in
October 2021, the organization was
just starting to flourish in Philadelphia,
gaining enough traction, as well as a
grant from the Jewish Federation of
Greater Philadelphia, to create and fill
the role of a field manager in the city
after five or so years of building interest.

Having moved to the city on Oct.

1, the job became an opportunity for
Chasen to learn Philadelphia’s commu-
nity, something she has been in pursuit
of in every city she’s called home.

After graduating from Brown
University with a bachelor’s degree in
medicinal plant research and ethno-
botany, Chasen moved to Portland,
Oregon, with an interest in attending
naturopathic school, right before the
state’s adult-use marijuana sales.

She worked at a dispensary and
“loved talking to people” and using her
undergraduate degree to help patrons
and patients navigate medical mari-
juana. Chasen became general man-
ager and later director of education for
the business before leaving to become a
consultant and to work to open a hand-
ful of dispensaries in Portland.

The opportunity at OneTable allowed
Chasen to relocate and live in a more
affordable city to continue her educa-
tion, but leaving her Portland commu-
nity behind was painful for her. Looking
for an outlet for her creative energy and
quest for homemaking, Chasen trans-
formed her Manayunk row home into
the Philly Fun House, painting the walls
with bright, flowing patterns and deco-
rating the space with an amalgamation
of textured furniture and decor. She and
her fiancee rent the space out for photo
shoots and feature it on TikTok.

“It’s part of a scar, if you will, of a
time when I felt really depressed and
alone, but to see what I could create out
of that — the beauty and the lightness
and the color — I feel really proud,”
she said.

Just as Chasen has created a person-
alized version of her home, she believes
she’s done the same with her time
at OneTable, guiding the organization
with her flair and goals for communi-
ty-building. She hopes her successor
will do the same.

“The way that I’ve grown the hub and
managed the field and the community
might be completely different from the
next person who comes in,” Chasen
said. "But I think that’s a really cool
aspect of it because then it can grow in
so many different, equally wonderful
ways.” JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of Emma Chasen
Emma Chasen