The international Shabbat Project involves more than a million Jews in 84 countries

Tel Aviv is epicenter of global Shabbat initiative in Israel.

Shabbat Project participants baking challah together in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The number of cities expected to join in this week’s annual global Shabbat is approaching 1,000, and organizers expect it to surpass that number.

This is the third year of the Shabbat Project since it launched in 2014, and the number of participants has grown exponentially from year to year, with an estimated one million having taken part last year in 919 cities and 84 countries across the globe.

This year, 57 new cities have committed to take part, from Lodz in Poland, to Hoorn in the Netherlands, Alphaville in Brazil and Hollywood, USA.

The tag line of this year’s Shabbat Project is “Shabbat can do that.”

“In 2014 and again in 2015, through the transformative power of Shabbat, we’ve seen individuals and communities accomplish great things; things that before were not thought possible,” explains the brains behind the initiative, South Africa’s Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein. “We’ve seen walls torn down, families rejuvenated, deep feelings awakened, deep friendships formed. This is what Shabbat can do,” he adds.

Full story here.