OneTable Host Program

Jewish ritual/practice

OneTable

10 hub cities with hosts from 470 cities across the United States

Multiple national and regional funders, including Jewish Federations, foundations, and private donors

Target Population

Jewish young adults approximately between the ages of 21 and 39

Jewish Knowledge/Engagement Level of Participants

OneTable attracts participants from a wide range of Jewish backgrounds and levels of Jewish education and experience. While those who sign up as hosts tend to have more Jewish experiences, on average, than guests (such as overnight camp, youth group, day schools, Israel travel, etc.), the program and resources are designed to support people with any level of Jewish knowledge to host a Shabbat celebration.

Primary Goals

OneTable provides resources and hands-off guidance to encourage Jewish young adults to explore Friday night Shabbat dinner in ways that are “meaningful, authentic, and sustainable.”

Brief Description

OneTable is a digital platform that provides guidance and resources for hosting a Shabbat dinner as well as connecting those who wish to attend Shabbat dinners as a guest to Shabbat hosts in their area. OneTable is designed to support Hosts with intention-setting—envisioning the kind of Shabbat they want to host—and resources —Shabbat dinner guides, ritual cards, audio recordings, recipes, and financial support—so there are no barriers for hosts to create their own Friday night dinner. OneTable does not teach hosts the “correct” way to host Shabbat, but instead encourages exploration and personal intention-setting to allow hosts to explore what a meaningful Shabbat looks like to them. This allows guests to experience the ritual of Shabbat in a wide variety of ways, encouraging exploration and personal meaning-making. When people become Hosts, they are led through a 15– to 20–minute application process that encourages them to consider what’s important to them and what kind of experience they’d like others to have at their dinner. Each week, Hosts can journey through an “intention-setter” on the OneTable platform that asks them how they want guests to feel and what they want them to experience. Their answers lead to a curated list of resources just for that Host. Hosts also have access to a local Field Manager—the local support person who checks in with Hosts to explore how things are going and what additional resources would be helpful. Lastly, hosts receive a modest budget per guest per dinner to subsidize the costs of hosting.

Characteristic

Characteristic & Implementation

Implementation

Internalization

OneTable is particularly sensitive to “imposter syndrome,” which is mitigated by a focus on making ALL people feel welcome and emphasizing that everyone who walks through the door is “Jewish enough” to make a Shabbat dinner. Thus, there is no bar that anyone must pass to “qualify” as Jewish. Like other empowerment programs, OneTable sees the pathway to deeper Jewish outcomes as a relational pathway, depending on the social connections between participants to root the Jewish experiences. The social basis of Shabbat dinner and the focus on the user experience attract participants and serve as a bridge to a deeper and more intentional engagement with Jewish meaning as seen through one’s personal lens. The intentional process of envisioning and designing the Shabbat dinner forces hosts inward. The lack of prescribed directives requires hosts to thoughtfully reflect on what feels meaningful and authentic to them.

Mentorship

While local field coordinators do serve in a kind of light advisory role, mentorship is not a focus nor plays a big role in this program.

Ownership Opportunities

The personal authorship that is not only allowed but explicitly encouraged in OneTable hosts is a textbook example of providing ownership opportunities around Jewish ritual practice. While hosts are offered numerous resources, they are free to use any or none of those resources. The “intention-setter” portion of the OneTable host application is specifically designed to help scaffold the decision-making processes inherent in creating a Shabbat experience in a way that guides hosts to consider all the areas of decision-making while simultaneously allowing them full authorship in the decisions themselves. This kind of scaffolding encourages ownership without the paralysis that an utter lack of structure can often induce.

License to Experiment

OneTable is careful to make all their resources, including interaction with the local coordinator, nonprescriptive, so that hosts feel as free as possible to experiment and innovate with their hosting, drawing on various resources, including some that sit outside of Jewish texts and ritual.

Internalization

Mentorship

While local field coordinators do serve in a kind of light advisory role, mentorship is not a focus nor plays a big role in this program.

OneTable Host Program

Target Population

Jewish Knowledge/Engagement Level of Participants

Primary Goals

Brief Description

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