Hold the Manishevitz. This is not your bubbe’s Shabbat.
Gen Z and Millennial New Yorkers are eschewing the traditional Friday night Jewish dinners for buzzy Shabbat-themed parties at trendy bars and restaurants with DJs, chef-driven food, free-flowing booze and dancing into the wee hours.
“If you want a traditional Shabbat dinner that’s great, there are a million synagogues who can do that,” said Rabbi Igael Gurin Malous, who goes by “Rabbi Iggy” and is the official holy man for Hot & Shabbat, a recurring party held at a different venue several times a year. “But if you want something else, you now have that too. This is what Judaism is about, the constant reinvention of ourselves and finding out who we are,”
Hot & Shabbat’s mid-20s-something founder, Liv Schreiber, said she wanted to find a way to show young people the “love and light” of the holy day— on their own terms
Last Friday, she hosted about 300 cocktail attire-clad young professionals at Mesiba, a Williamsburg Mediterranean restaurant. Some in attendance weren’t even Jewish.
“It’s about uniting people,” Schreiber told The Post. “We, as Jews, have only survived because we have allies. We will only continue to survive because we have people to support us.”
Showgirls and a magician greeted attendees. Rabbi Iggy kicked off the night with a meditation to encourage people to leave the work week behind and welcome the weekend. There was an open bar, shots, a DJ and a buffet dinner of Israeli fare.
Tickets for such events are $89 and, according to Schreiber, sell out in five to 10 minutes.
Edoardo Comazzi, 26, who lives in Hudson Yards and works as an interior designer, wasn’t sure exactly what he’d purchased a ticket for, but he was enjoying himself.
“I am not Jewish. Actually, it’s the first time I’ve heard about the term Shabbat, so I don’t even know what it means,” he told The Post.
A group called Jew.York.City that collects information about Jewish events happening across the city, listed almost 20 different Shabbat dinners and parties for last Friday night.
Hot Girls Do Shabbat — a women-only dinner that leads into a co-ed dance party — was having a shindig at members club Maxwell Social in Tribeca. Hot and Holy was throwing an open-bar bash at the Public Hotel in Nolita that went until 4 am.
“I think it’s a mix of Jewish people wanting community after October 7 and the boom of IRL events as a whole,” said Morgan Raum, a 27-year-old who works in tech and started her own event series, Shabbat Club, in October 2023. “There are so many Shabbat groups now, and the best part of it is that sometimes we will all be hosting on the same Friday and none of us have problems filling the room.”
“There are so many competing events,” added Jessica Brown, a 34-year-old who works for a non-profit and lives on the Upper East Side. “None of them are in shuls or even run by organizations. They are like social clubs.”
Last Friday, Brown opted to go to Gertie, a modern diner in Williamsburg that launched a Shabbat supper club in June. Guest chefs whip up a three-course dinner for $75.
Guests were blown away by the food and drink offerings — which included Moroccan apricot chicken tagine, Malagasy vegetable salad, a turmeric negroni and a roasted honey-and-pickle brine margarita.
“Normally when I think of shabbat I think of Manischewitz and I don’t think about the food. But this is exciting,” said a 33-year-old entrepreneur from Boreum Hill who attended the dinner alone and declined to give his name. “Who doesn’t want interesting cocktails and good wine at Shabbat or really any meal?”
Not everyone, apparently.
Raum said she’s gotten “so much hate” for her group’s Shabbat-ish events, which have included bottomless schnitzel dinners, wine bar meetups and blind date parties. Sometimes they’re on the traditional Friday night, but other times they’re not.
On TikTok, commenters have criticized her for holding events where phones are used, as electronics are traditionally not allowed to be used on he Jewish sabbath.
“They make me so mad,” she said. “I’m catering to a non-religious crowd, and people who are religious or have a problem with it have places they can go and feel included and do their thing.”
She continued, “I am very happy for them that they have those spaces, and I am happy people have mine.”
