A Chabad-organized event attracted thousands of teenagers to Times Square on Saturday night to “celebrate their Jewish Pride,” according to a post by Chabad.org on X, formerly Twitter. 

The event, “A Solidarity of Teens,” was organized by CTeen, or Chabad Teen Network, which bills itself as “the fastest growing network of Jewish teens,” and is geared to Jewish teenagers worldwide.

The event featured a concert by popular Israeli singer Gad Elbaz, and drew teens from a diverse spectrum of Jewish backgrounds, including both Orthodox and non-Orthodox communities. The teens sang and danced to popular Jewish songs expressing unity and solidarity with all Jews. 

“Jewish pride is everything,” one teenaged boy said in a video taken at the event. “It’s our roots, our families, our friends, we are all united.” Others, too, spoke about feelings of belonging and connectedness, and valuing their Jewish heritage and identity. The video was posted on Instagram by Miriam Ezagui, an Orthodox Jewish influencer with nearly two million followers on TikTok.

A havdalah ceremony, a ritual event marking the end of Shabbos, was dedicated to the hostages taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, and to IDF soldiers currently fighting against Hamas in Gaza. Three Israeli teenagers from the Israeli cities of Sderot and Ashkelon and from kibbutz Be’eri, all of which had come under attack on Oct. 7, held havdalah candles meant to symbolize “carrying the light of the Jewish people.” 

Since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, Jewish teenagers in the U.S. have reported feelings of isolation and fear as antisemitic incidents in the U.S. have surged, and Jewish college students find their own peers posting antisemitic comments online.

According to its website, C-Teen has 730 chapters in 58 countries, and was created in order to fuse “fun, friendship, humanitarian outreach, mitzvah observance, and engaging Torah study.”

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