HEADLINES
LOCAL Sharing Shabbat
in Greater Phoenix
just became
OneTable easier
SHANNON LEVITT | STAFF WRITER
A fter a serious accident sent Aleeza
Kaplan to recuperate in her parents’
house in San Diego, she felt completely
isolated, far from her home and friends
in Phoenix.

“I was lonely, I was sad and I was
hurting,” she told Jewish News.

When an old friend from Hillel reached
out and invited her to Shabbat dinner, she
quickly accepted, but giddiness turned to
confusion when she discovered it was like
no Shabbat she had been to before.

Instead of accepting the invitation by
text or phone call, she used a website,
OneTable.org. “There’s no way this is real,” she told
her friend. “What’s the catch? What’s
the agenda?”
She soon found out the “agenda”
was merely to share a Shabbat dinner
with a group of young adults. Whatever
happened next was up for grabs.

OneTable is a national nonprofit that
empowers young people in their 20s and
30s to find, share and enjoy Shabbat
dinners through its website.

Kaplan overcame any sense of
trepidation about using a website when
these Shabbatot became her entry into
San Diego’s Jewish community while
she was laid up at her folks’. She’s home
in Phoenix now, and as of Dec.5, she
is OneTable’s first Phoenix community
ambassador. In cities with a relatively large Jewish
young adult population, where there is
demand for something like OneTable,
the organization looks for people to
provide dedicated resources that keep it
independent of the national infrastructure,
said Ely Benhamo, OneTable’s director of
major gifts.

(Benhamo lives in Phoenix, where
she works remotely for the national
organization.) “If a community has its own page on
our platform and actual boots on the
ground, then we’re really able to grow
the community with more of a personal
touch,” she said.

Locals Joshua and Brittany Simon
committed to the creation of a Phoenix
hub for OneTable and agreed to raise the
money, which they did with the assistance
of the Center for Jewish Philanthropy of
Greater Phoenix (CJP).

6 JANUARY 6, 2023
In her new par t-time position,
Kaplan will establish partnerships in the
community, review host applicants and all
Shabbat dinners posted to the platform in
Greater Phoenix. OneTable gives young
adult Jews — between the ages of 21 and
39 — money to host a Shabbat dinner
($300 if it’s open to the public; $100 if
it’s invitation only).

Additionally, Kaplan will ser ve as
support staff, a kind of “Shabbat coach,”
so to speak.

“She’ll be the connector, the coach,
the relationship builder,” Benhamo said.

“It’s all DIY. It’s all peer led. OneTable
doesn’t create the programs for them —
we just give them the tools and resources
to do that on their own.”
Madeline Dolgin first heard of
OneTable in college in New York,
and she attended a Shabbat dinner in
Phoenix using the national hub before the
pandemic. But it wasn’t until recently that
she saw its real value: a tool for creating
Jewish community.

Dolgin once worked at Hillel at
Arizona State University, where she had
easy access to a Jewish community on
campus. Once she left and transitioned
to more secular work, she investigated
ways to continue her involvement with
the Jewish community at large.

OneTable was appealing because of its
very low barrier for entry.

“You literally just sign up online and
register to be a host and they walk you
through the platform,” she said.

“The funding piece was huge because
I was still in my early career with a fairly
small salary and to be able to host Shabbat
dinner and host my friends — and afford
to pay for all of their food — was hard,”
she said.

And asking friends to pitch in? That was
just too awkward, she said.

When she and her husband joined
Congregation Kehillah in Cave Creek,
Rabbi Bonnie Sharfman asked for their
assistance in making young adults feel
more welcome.

In addition to a hiking club and
teaching Jewish education classes, the
couple has committed to hosting a
Shabbat dinner every month — OneTable
became a natural resource.

“Our Shabbat dinners are filled up with
Friends gather at Madeline Dolgin’s OneTable Shabbat dinner.

COURTESY OF MADELINE DOLGIN
Madeline Dolgin hosted a Shabbat dinner during Sukkot using OneTable.

COURTESY OF MADELINE DOLGIN
an age group we call “post-college, pre-
family,” Dolgin said.

For a young couple with no kids to send
to Hebrew school, the synagogue might
not seem the place to go for community.

However, people this age still want
something beyond just a social engagement
with other singles, Dolgin said.

“I have a lot of Jewish friends but they
all seemed very disparate, like they didn’t
have a central hub or place where they all
got together,” she said.

Her Shabbat dinners are now that
place. What’s more is that her friends are
becoming friends with one another and
when she is invited to any get together,
she sees many of the same faces from her
Shabbat table. That’s been gratifying to
JEWISH NEWS
watch over the last few months since she
made her commitment.

“Young adults haven’t been catered to as
well as maybe they could have. Hillel does a
really incredible job and then you graduate
and you think, ‘OK, what do I do now? And
what does my Jewish identity look like?’
We’re starting to create something where
those young adults can be introduced to the
greater Jewish community and feel a part of
it,” she said. JN
To learn more or sign up to host or attend a Shabbat
dinner, visit OneTable.org.

Jewish News is published by the Jewish
Community Foundation of Greater Phoenix, a
component of the Center for Jewish Philanthropy
of Greater Phoenix.

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