Mega Challah Bake to Unite 450+ Cincinnati Women for a Night of Tradition & Community

In a celebration of community and tradition, more than 450 Jewish women will make challah together at the eighth annual Mega Challah Bake on November 21.

The golden challah loaf is beautiful, delicious, and steeped in tradition. Generations of Jewish history are entwined in each strand of the braided loaves that form the table centerpiece for Shabbat and holiday dinners.

Yet for many contemporary women, making fresh challah from scratch is a lost art.  The Mega Challah Bake is bringing the cherished tradition back.

This unique and joyful evening brings together women of all ages, from all parts of the Jewish community, for a fun, hands-on experience – learning to make authentic challah as their grandmothers and great-grandmothers did before them.

Elyse Jarard, of Kenwood, has attended the challah bake twice before. In previous years, she says, the event was held just before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. “Making my own challah made the holiday extra special,” Jarard says.

In later years, when the event was held after Rosh Hashanah, she didn’t want her family to miss having homemade loaves for the holiday. “So I made it myself. The recipe we are taught at the Challah Bake is so easy. It turned out great.”

Event organizer Chana Mangel explains that Jewish tradition teaches that when a woman bakes challah and makes the appropriate blessings on the dough, she brings additional blessing into her home. “By bringing hundreds of women together, we hope the Mega Challah Bake inspires unity in our community and that our joint prayers will be powerful,” she says.

Media are invited to see the challah making in progress. The program begins with instruction on how to make the dough. Following a dessert reception (while the dough rises), women will have the opportunity to learn how to shape the dough into three-braided and six-braided challah loaves.

• Thursday November 21, 2024
• 7-9 pm
• Adath Israel Congregation Social Hall

3201 E. Galbraith Rd.

Cincinnati, OH 45236

Contact: Chana Mangel

Chabad Jewish Center

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 513-793-5200