Max Berlin is the chairman of the executive committee of Yeshiva Beth Yehudah in Detroit, Michigan
I’m part of the team that plans and coordinates the yeshivah’s annual dinner. YBY’s dinner is unlike any other you’ve seen — it’s the largest Jewish dinner in America, with just under 3,000 people attending — we’d like to host more than that, but the ballroom doesn’t have space. We like to say it’s the largest frum event most people never heard of.
Rabbanim, community leaders, and philanthropists fill the dais, along with Michigan’s governor, US senators and house representatives, Supreme Court justices, the United States attorney, Michigan attorney general, president of the NAACP, and other VIPs. The event is timed to the minute, with a professionally produced program that highlights Torah, scholarship, and ethics. Our mindset is that we’re opening a window into the frum community, and we want to put our best foot forward — we aim to impress.
You want to know who makes up our usual crowd? The real question is, who doesn’t?! In 2016, we added a third tier to the dais to accommodate the dozens of co-chairs, politicians, judges, and law enforcement officials who attend. The rest of the room is filled with our parent body, the hanhalah and staff, and hundreds of Partners Detroit learning program participants. That’s really special, the hour prior to the dinner, Partners participants fill an entire ballroom to learn before the event begins. Seeing talmud Torah taking place during the event brings it all home for me and really elevates the kedushah of the evening.
The dinner is in the fall, right before elections, and candidates from every race show up — they want to be seen here. A few years ago, when every major office in Michigan was up for reelection, every single candidate was at the dinner. There were too many to mention by name so when Gary Torgow, our yeshivah president, spoke, he said, “I don’t consider myself a prophet, but I can tell you with full confidence that the next Michigan governor, attorney general, and secretary of state are in this room with us tonight.”
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