A Shabbat dinner has entered the Guinness Book of World Records.

Last Friday night, a Chabad-organised dinner for the participants of the European Maccabi Games in Berlin saw 2,322 Jewish men and women joining the largest Shabbat meal on record.

Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, Rabbi of the Berlin Jewish community and the head of Chabad Berlin, said at a service before the dinner: “This Shabbat is the Shabbat of Nachamu, which means ‘comfort.’ It is also the 15th of Av, the day the decree that the Jews wander in the desert came to an end and one of the happiest days on the Jewish calendar. From the terrible suffering comes joy and comfort.

“Of course, this is truest in Berlin,” he continued. “Just decades ago, this was the source of horrors beyond imagination. Yet in this very same city, thousands of young Jews can gather to celebrate, fraternise and explore their heritage.”