Prepping a Shabbat for Olympics Visitors in Sochi

For rabbinical interns Dovid Katz and JJ Hecht, preparing for and running Shabbat meals for hundreds of guests at the Sochi Olympics is an old game in a new arena.

The Brooklyn-born duo has extensive outreach and programming experience within the Jewish community—most recently, traveling together this past summer to visit small communities near Ulyanovsk, Russia.

They are among the 12 interns and rabbis from around the world who joined Chabad Rabbi Ari Edelkopf, rabbi of the Sochi Jewish community, in his effort to cater to the Jewish needs of visitors who have converged on the seaside Russian city for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

The pair spent most of Friday—their first day on the job—meeting people and drumming up interest for the Shabbat prayer services and meals to be held in the Krasna Polyana Marriott, located in the mountain range where the snow sporting events will take place.

The Shabbat meals, which will be hosted in the VIP room of one of the hotel’s restaurants, are expected to draw athletes, journalists and dozens of others from around the globe. It will be a familiar experience for Katz, who spent a year in Venice, Italy, where Chabad’s legendary Shabbat meals are a highlight of the Jewish tourist experience in the city of lights.

Hecht says the guest list will include many people the pair met during the day, including a Jewish chef from Lithuania who will be bringing three friends, an Israeli expat who was thrilled to have the opportunity to speak her native Hebrew, and a Jewish jeweler who runs a high-end shop in the Marriot.

Other Shabbat services and meals will be hosted at the Jewish community center in the middle of Sochi and at a temporary Chabad center just outside the Olympic Park, on the coast of the Black Sea.

Rabbinical interns Dovid Katz, left, and JJ Hecht, right, spent their first day "on the job," meeting people and drumming up interest for Shabbat prayer services and meals to be held in the Krasna Polyana Marriott.